VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a literary gathering?
NAOMI: Being one of the warm-up acts to Armistead Maupin in the Mission District of San Francisco (no details necessary). Also, at an event at Vroman’s a month after the election on December 7, I was interrupted at by a man declaring that the Japanese could kill a person with one finger. (I believe he was actually referring to Bruce Lee.)
Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning mystery author and social historian. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, she’s written nonfiction books about gardeners in Southern California, the oldest flower market in downtown Los Angeles, the lost communities of Terminal Island, and most recently, the travails of Japanese Americans after being released from Manzanar. Her seventh and final Mas Arai mystery, HIROSHIMA BOY, was released in March. She is currently helping to adapt an independent film, “The Big Bachi,” based on her first mystery.
Come see Naomi read at Book Show in Highland Park on Friday, April 13 at 7:30pm.