Dear friends and readers,
I’m signing books and continuing to write about Japanese craft. Here’s a brief update.
You can pick up signed copies of WATER, WOOD, AND WILD THINGS (or order them online) while they last from Elliot Bay Book Company, Kitchen Arts and Letters, or Books Are Magic.
PERSONALIZED BOOKS
Throughout the month of June I’ll be personalizing copies of WATER, WOOD, AND WILD THINGS at Books Are Magic. When you check out online, tell us in the “notes” field that you would like a signed copy, who its for, and if there’s anything special you’d like me to write (perhaps a birthday or graduation wish, or encouragement to an aspiring writer).
JAPANESE BRUSHES IN T MAGAZINE
For the New York Times I went to Nara to spend a day with Chiyomi Tanaka, a dento kogeshi (master of traditional high craft) who makes Nara fude, brushes with over 1300 years of history in that city. I hope you’ll find her story—of curiosity and perseverance—as inspiring as I did!
HELP SPREAD THE WORD
If you’ve read WATER, WOOD, AND WILD THINGS, would you write a review on Amazon, Audible, Goodreads, Readerly or wherever you like to get books and find new things to read? This helps me a lot by making it easier for other readers to discover my book!
“Water, Wood, and Wild Things is memoir, ethnography, cookbook, and sketchbook rolled into one. It evokes the best of the nature writing of Rachel Carson and Wendell Berry, as well as the food writing of M.F.K. Fisher and craft writing of Edmund de Waal. . . . [Kirshner’s] observations about her teachers’ works render extraordinary what at first glance might seem ordinary. Her drawings are charming, and her words, miraculous.”
—The Provincetown Independent
“Part memoir, part cookbook, and part love letter to Yamanaka, the Japanese mountain town where Kirshner apprenticed with craftspeople. Kirshner’s portrait of the community is vivid and full of detail—it is as close to traveling anywhere outside the country that I got in the last year.”
—Margaret Eby, Food & Wine
Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my free newsletter for occasional updates on WATER, WOOD, AND WILD THINGS and other things I’m working on.
xo Hannah