An Unexpected Retreat, essay in Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan, anthology (Camphor Press, 2020)
Lured into joining a koto (Japanese zither) club in Shuho-cho, Japan, I experienced being part of a centuries-old tradition … and received the opportunity to disappear from life’s challenges.

The Tootsie Pop War, by Eugene Carroll, as told to Sarah Coomber
Eugene and I collaborated on this Vietnam War-era story as part of the “Tell Your Story” offering I provided to a local school auction.

Summer Fling, The Light (the alumni magazine of Youth For Understanding intercultural exchange program)
Sometimes a small leap of faith can reorient an entire life.

Love on the Line, Memoir Journal, Issue 12
This is a story of how love finds us again and again — and often not in the places, people or ways we expect.

Zithering Away, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Issue 18
They say politics makes strange bedfellows, and I would add that loneliness does too. It leads some of us to play music … and join unlikely communities.

Snow Angels, The Font: A Literary Journal for Language Teachers
This essay on visiting Japanese elementary schools is part of my book-length memoir about two years I spent in rural Japan.

Digging Up Bones, South Dakota Review
I never imagined how a dinosaur could touch me until I joined a group of bone hunters on a South Dakota hillside.

A Quiet Drama in Japanese Skies, The Christian Science Monitor
I thought fireflies were fireflies … until I encountered them in Yamaguchi, Japan.