by Rebecca Copeland | Apr 22, 2026 | Family
“I’m doing the best I can,” Beth texts me. It’s 5:23 in the morning my time. I’m in Kyoto. Beth’s in an intensive care unit in Winston Salem, North Carolina. It’s her third admittance since she began her cancer journey in early 2025. I know she hates being in the... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Mar 25, 2026 | Japanese Literature
There’s a trend these days on social media to acknowledge “the last time” someone does something. Often, it’s something to mark a milestone. For example, the other day I saw a video of a mother telling her pre-adolescent son that she will always remember the first... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Mar 11, 2026 | Japanese Literature
“Pick a topic you love,” my PhD advisor told me. “You’re going to be working on it for years.” At first, I bristled at the advice, thinking he meant I was likely to take a long time finishing my dissertation. Was I really that slow? Later I came to understand. The... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Apr 23, 2025 | Memories
“You must feel like you have a target on your back,” Van said to me as soon as he saw me in the hallway. I had just stepped out of an academic panel and was making my way to the next one on the schedule. The Association of Asian Studies was always hectic, with people... 
by Rebecca Copeland | Apr 9, 2025 | Memories
“It is just too long and it will be too expensive and it will kill off the market,” Peter wrote to me about my manuscript. His tone was brutal, and so was his prediction. No writer wants to “kill off” their market. At long last Peter and I had secured a contract with...
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