Age of Blossoms is a Rashomon-like literary historical novel about the Japanese population of Mayne Island, British Columbia, from the early 1930s until their expulsion in 1942. The story plays with onomatopoeia in English and Japanese and is structured around the wild landscape of the Pacific Northwest as it chronicles the thwarted romance between a Canadian girl and her nikkei friend. A queer Snow Falling on Cedars, it’s a love story, a ghost story, and a tale of interracial and class tensions. Age of Blossoms draws on historical figures, canonical Japanese poetry, and fairy tales to show how the past is never truly past.

The first chapter will be published as a short story titled “Koro-Koro” in the Spring 2025 issue of Ploughshares.

Entrance to the Japanese Memorial Gardens on Mayne Island, British Columbia