Come meet writers
Elaine Cockrell and
Elizabeth (Betsy) Aoki whose work illuminates and celebrates the Japanese American experience. Betsy is a poet, fiction writer, and game designer whose award-winning first collection
Breakpoint combines lyrical free verse with found “code poems” to explore the technological and societal landscape. Betsy infuses both her Japanese heritage and her love for tech into her poetry which takes readers on a powerful journey through Japanese folklore, family stories, and internment camps using modern and magical imagery. Through exhaustive research and her own family stories, Elaine Cockrell’s historical novel
A Shrug of the Shoulders paints a vivid picture of the forced internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Through multiple points of view and dozens of vivid settings, author Elaine Cockrell creates a mosaic of Japanese-American perseverance: one tiled with humor, frustration, despair, anger, and love.
We are thrilled to present this cross-genre event in collaboration with the JACL and we thank them for their sponsorship.
To attend this event, you must purchase a Book Fair & Events Pass which covers entry into our two-day Book Fair and all 17 events taking place at the Montvale Event Center. Tickets will go on sale Monday, March 20th at 8am. Surveys help our program obtain critical grant funding. Thank you for taking a few minutes to complete our survey after you've attended any of our events! If you enjoyed your experience and want to donate to our program, please use this link!
