Spring 春

The world springs forth! Writing Contests and Sputnik Sweetheart

春の語源には、草木の芽が「張る（はる）」季節からとする説。
田畑を「墾る（はる）」季節から、「春」になったとする説。
気候の「晴る（はる）」が転じて、「春」になったとする説がある。

Spring:

The etymology of “haru” — spring 春— is thought to come from the homonym (張る) meaning “to bud.” This is, after all, the time when trees and plants bud with new life (張る). Another possibility is the word haru 墾る that describes the process of preparing the fields for new cultivation. Farmers have to clear and til the soil…

My favorite version is that haru gets its name from “haru” or “hareru” 晴る（はる）meaning “fine weather.” After a long, cold winter, the flowers bring warmer days.

According to scholar Nakanishi Susumu, in Ryan Shaldjian Morrison’s wonderful translation of The Japanese Linguistic Landscape, “Haru is the season when our hearts flutter with excitement.”

To bud and flourish. And to prepare the fields for new cultivation, this is the time of the pure and clear 清明, when geese head north 鴻雁北 and when rainbows are visible 虹始見.

For me, the last few weeks have seen happy surprises in the world of writing:

·      My story collection Cabinet of Curiosity (codename Shipwrecked) was shortlisted in the 2021 Dzanc Books SHORT STORY COLLECTION PRIZE and a finalist for the 2021 Nilsen Prize.

·      My novel excerpt The King’s Painter was long-listed for the The Masters Review 2021 Novel Excerpt Contest

·     My essay "The Best Picture in the World: On the Piero della Francesca Trail" went to the final judges on the nonfiction shortlist, and "Birdwatching in Oil Paintings" made it to the longlist of the 2022 Disquiet Literary Contest. Judges said this:

Our readers thought that "The Best Picture in the World" was "a lovely, well-researched essay that successfully moves between ekphraksis and the personal. It was a particularly nice change of pace to read a "happy" love story."    

I was also really happy that an essay I wrote for an art history class on art plundering and a Korean teabowl was published at Electrum Magazine and then picked up by The Browser. Essay here: Christopher Hitchens and the Korean Tea-bowl.

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In other news, I started reading Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart, translated by Philip Gabriel. I am not a big fan of Murakami but am really enjoying the novel—more than I’d expected! I also liked Kafka on the Shore. But I think this is the first of his novels that I can actually say I like a lot.

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I am a big fan of Ilan Stavans so am passing along this from the LA Review of Books: How Dictionaries Define Us: Margaret Boyle and Ilan Stavans in Conversation

If you are at all interested in dictionaries, I loved the The Great Passage, by Shion Miura —translated by one of my favorite literary translators Juliet Winters Carpenter. My Goodreads review here.

Pictures from my bookcase (I was inspired by the Great Passage to re-purchase the kojien).