News

Our new Classics of Asian American Literature series has been getting a lot of attention lately:

Our new edition of Mine Okubo’s Citizen 13660 will be featured along with nine other graphic novels in the September 2014 issue of Foreword Reviews:

“Originally published in 1946, Citizen 13660 is a documentation of life inside the World War II “relocation centers” for those of Japanese ancestry. This oft-overlooked portion of American history is brought poignantly to life by Okubo’s expressive ink drawings and accompanying text…Without a doubt, this book should be on required reading lists for high schools across the country.”

The International Examiner featured a review of Monica Sone’s Nisei Daughter:

“Nisei Daughter is a book of its time, but it deserves to be read and re-read and considered within changing cultural perspectives and treasured for the voice it gives to a period in American history that still needs to be understood and should never be forgotten.” Read the full review here.

In a Facebook post, writer Ruth Ozeki reflected on her experience writing the foreword to the new edition of John Okada’s No-No Boy:

“The University of Washington Press asked me to write a foreword (excerpted here) for their beautiful new edition of the classic novel, No-No Boy, by John Okada. The novel centers around the infamous loyalty questionnaire given to Japanese-American men during WWII, and in particular the bitter experience of a young man who refuses to serve in the U.S. armed forces and swear loyalty to the country that had interned him and his family.

I decided to write the foreword as a letter to John Okada, who died in 1971, never realizing that his novel would become a classic. I wanted him to know that his book is still being read. I think he would be proud of this new edition.”

Finally, our Classics of Asian American Literature initiative was featured in this article from Asian American News. We appreciate all the coverage and hope it will help in our mission to bring these books out to a new generation of readers!

Upcoming Events

Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, Shaping Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects, Peter Miller Books, August 6, 6:00 p.m.

T.V. Reed with Jess Walter, Robert Cantwell and the Literary Left: A Northwest Writer Reworks American Fiction, Seattle Public Library, August 27, 7:00 p.m.

New Books

Shaping Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects, Second Edition
Edited by Jeffrey Karl Ochsner
The first edition of Shaping Seattle Architecture, published in 1994, introduced readers to Seattle’s architects by showcasing the work of those who were instrumental in creating the region’s built environment. Twenty years later, the second edition updates and expands the original with new information and illustrations that provide an even richer exploration of Seattle architecture.

Shaping Seattle Architecture celebrates a wide range of people who helped form the region’s built environment. It provides updated information about many of the architects and firms profiled in the first edition. Four individuals newly included in this second edition are Edwin J. Ivey, a leading residential designer; Fred Bassetti, an important contributor to Northwest regional modernism; L. Jane Hastings, one of the region’s foremost women in architecture; and Richard Haag, founder of the landscape architecture program at the University of Washington and designer of Gas Works Park and the Bloedel Reserve.

Mary Randlett Landscapes
Photographs by Mary Randlett
With Barry Herem, Jo Ann Ridley, and Joyce Thompson
Introduction by Ted D’Arms and Denise Levertov

Mary Randlett Landscapes presents a visual record of the Northwest at its most pristine and poetic. During her many years of finely tuned observation, Randlett has learned to take the time to ponder the essences of what she sees-the curl of a bird’s drifting feather, a water strider not quite breaking the surface of the water, fog ascending a hillside, the moment a pond’s surface turns to ice. Her photography brings this corner of the Northwest to the world.

COMING FALL 2014

Mary Randlett Portraits
By Frances McCue
Photographs by Mary Randlett
A curated collection of ninety photographs from the more than six hundred portraits she took of Northwest artists, writers, and cultural luminaries, Mary Randlett Portraits documents the region’s artistic legacy through one woman’s camera lens.