Tamiko Nimura

April 2025 update: The book is now called A Place For What We Lose: A Daughter’s Journey to Tule Lake. It is forthcoming (!) from the University of Washington Press. Please watch the home page for more details. 

August 2023 update: I am represented by Noelle Falcis Math and Amanda Orozco of Transatlantic Agency. 

Excerpts of the project have been published at Off Assignment, Modern Loss, Narratively, and Discover Nikkei.

“To My 11- Year Old Father In the Camp” (Off Assignment, September 2021)

 “My Dad Died Decades Ago. An Online Stranger Taught Me About The Man He Was.” (Narratively, reprinted from Modern Loss, March 2017)

 “Reframing Japanese American Bitterness: A Partial Chronology” (Discover Nikkei, March 2022)

For more about the project early in its process, you can check out the following blog excerpts:

• About a library (June 20, 2010)
• Opening the envelope (July 11, 2010)
• Findings in fractions (August 7, 2010)
• Today’s fractional finding (September 9, 2010)
• Desert chrysanthemums (September 28, 2010)
• An interlude (October 5, 2010)
• Poem: For it’s 1, 2, 3… (November 1, 2010)
• Tsunami: What the Waves Leave Behind (March 15, 2011)
• My own private MFA: the final project proposal  (February 13, 2012)
• Poem: My Father in a Facebook Age (February 28, 2012)
• The beauty of visible grief (March 30, 2012)
• Legible (the diary, part 1) (April 8, 2012)
• In print (May 7, 2012)
• Poem: A Place for What We Lose (June 24, 2012)
• Self-Interview about the Book (The Next Big Thing) (March 15, 2013)
• Great Blog Tour: Four Questions (8/14)