by Rebecca Copeland | Feb 15, 2023 | Mystery Fiction
I continue with the series of scenes that were edited out of The Kimono Tattoo. The edits always improved the narrative flow, dramatically. Narrative timing is a skill I am still learning. In the early stages of writing The Kimono Tattoo, I understood that readers... 
by Rebecca Copeland | May 5, 2021 | Mystery Fiction
It starts with birds. I wasn’t sure how to begin at first. I sat at the oilcloth-covered table in the cabin, gazing out over the porch, thinking back to Kyoto. I had already decided to set my novel in Kyoto. In order to write about Kyoto, I had to... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Mar 10, 2021 | Mystery Fiction
October 3, 2012: I am now on my third day of my writer’s retreat, or what I’m calling my writer’s retreat. I’ve come alone to the cabin my father built in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee. He had intended the cabin to be a temporary shelter for the permanent house... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Jan 27, 2021 | Japanese Culture
If I had it all to do over again, I would do it differently. Of course, I didn’t know then what I know now. I had been given the opportunity to translate Kirino Natsuo’s award-winning novel, Grotesque, and I was elated. It was the first time I’d been contracted to... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Jan 13, 2021 | Japanese Culture
I was not the first pick to translate Kirino Natsuo’s Grotesque. Kirino’s agent went the rounds of other translators before being directed to me. And once she found me, she did not give me a contract on the spot. I had to “try out” for the job. She sent me several...
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