16 March 2016

Author Q&A Session #57: With Leza Lowitz



Good Afternoon my fellow bookworms,

Today in an all new author interview session, we have award-winning author, Leza Lowitz,  whose new YA novel-in-verse, Up From the Sea has released in the month of January and has already bagged a literary award. Leza is here to talk about her books, the Japan Tsunami, and her life beyond books and all. So stay tuned and keep reading!


Read the review of Up From the Sea




Me: Hello and welcome to my blog, Leza.

Leza: Thank you so much Aditi. I’m really happy to connect with readers in India, a country I’ve visited twice to study yoga and Ayurveda. It’s so full of rich culture and tradition, and is also very dear to my heart.


Me: Congratulations on your new book, Up From the Sea. How will you express your feelings about this book that has already won the hearts of so many readers?

Leza: I’m heartened that people are reading Up from the Sea and that in some way it is keeping the 3-11-11 disaster in their minds and helping us to understand that we are all connected, and that climate change is real and is having a dramatic impact on the environment. And the sad thing is, it’s only going to get worse.

The fifth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake is next month, and sadly, many are still struggling to recover from most powerful natural disaster in modern Japan. The earthquake, tsunami and man-made nuclear disaster left 15,894 dead, over 2,500 missing and nearly 230,000 people displaced.  We want to keep a light shining on Tohoku, where the people still need our help.


Me: How could you vividly capture every tiny details of the after-effects of a Tsunami? How were you inspired to pen this story?

Leza: I’ve lived in Japan for 12 years, and I was in Tokyo when the earthquake struck on March 11, 2011. Tokyo was shaking violently, and the threat of radiation was real and urgent, but we were safe compared to those on the coast, who had suffered a devastating tsunami. Many people fled Japan, and that was understandable given the threat of radiation, but I stayed with my Japanese husband, his elderly father, and our young son. As long as I was staying, I asked myself: how can I be of help? Since a pillar of yoga is SEVA or service, the yoga studio I own organized relief to send to devastated towns through many NGOs. In the spring, I traveled to Tohoku to volunteer.

But I wanted to do more. When I went to volunteer, I was inspired by the determination of a young boy I met in the disaster zone who had lost his mother. I thought perhaps I could use my skills as a writer to tell these stories that might otherwise be forgotten. They people said: Don’t forget us.”  So, I began to write Up from the Sea as a way to remember.


Me: How did you research this book?


Leza: I went to the affected area, I interviewed survivors and volunteers from Japan and all over the world who had gone up to the coast to be of help, and I combed the news daily for stories. I wove in events from real life into the fiction. This novel is about a boy who loves soccer and creates a team to rally his town after the tsunami. Months later, I discovered that exactly this had been done in coastal Onagawa. The team is the Cobaltore Onagawa Football Club. Supporters from all over the world helped in the difficult days following the disaster. 

Later, I learned that a soccer ball belonging to a teenager in Rikuzentakata washed up in Alaska. Amazingly, the ball was found by a man with a Japanese wife who could read the messages written on it. The couple traced the owner and traveled to Japan to return the ball. 

And then, in June 2011, four Japanese high school students who lost their parents and family members in the tsunami, and university students whose parents had perished in the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake in Kobe, Japan, flew to New York to raise awareness and money for the children of Tohoku orphaned in the March 11, 2011, disaster. Two American students, one who had lost her father in 9/11 and another who had lost his mother in Hurricane Katrina, joined efforts organized by the Ashinaga (“Daddy Long Legs”) NGO. I was deeply inspired by this story of survivors of tragedies in one country reaching out to survivors in another. I took creative liberty in imagining a meeting between children of 3/11 and children of 9/11 culminating in a visit to the National September 11 Memorial on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

So, I based this novel on the events of March 11, 2011, and their aftermath, including the above incidents, as well as events surrounding the tenth anniversary of 9/11. It is my hope that it will play a small part in keeping a light shining there to help those communities continue to rebuild and go into the future.


Me: Why did you decide to write the novel in verse?

Leza: I wrote Up from the Sea in verse (rather than straight narrative) because the verse form lent immediacy to the events, and many young readers (some with short attention spans) have found this form to be engaging.  My mentor, Holly Thompson, wrote two powerful young adult novels in verse which were very inspiring to me. (Orchards and The Language Inside) I’ve also been told that some children with learning differences, such as dyslexia, have gotten hooked by this book and read it until the end, which was a first for them. This was such a joy to learn.


Me: Tell us one trait of Kai that intrigues you the most.

Leza: I am very intrigued by Kai's biculturalism, living in two worlds, and I wonder how he will bridge these worlds as he grows up and grows into himself.  I actually know many kids like Kai, which is one reason I made a character that is of two worlds. It is my hope that bicultural or so-called third-culture kids will see themselves reflected more and more in literature.


Me: How will you describe your journey so far as an author?

Leza: I’ve been writing and publishing for 25 years. I started as a book reviewer, so I know how hard it is to write a book ( and how relatively easy it is to be a critic). I respect the sheer amount of elbow grease and determination it takes to write and publish a book. My journey has been: NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP.


Me: Was it always your one true dream to be an author?

Leza: I started writing since I was eight, and it was always my hope and dream to write and be a writer.  I failed many times.


Me: What other passions do you have apart from writing?

Leza: I love being a mom, and I love yoga. and I love teaching and sharing yoga and yogic philosophy. For the past twelve years, I’ve run a yoga studio in Tokyo, called Sun and Moon Yoga, in addition to writing. It’s a nice balance with the life of a writer, which is often solitary and “in the head.”  Yoga is in the heart, and the body. Everything is a yoga, though. Writing is a yoga. Mothering is a yoga. Life is  yoga.


Me: How do you get away from the stress of writing? And also please tell us briefly about your writing routine.

Leza: Well, you can guess what I am going to say...Yoga. And meditation. And walking the dog. And laughter.  I write every day for at least two hours. And I meet with writer friends to critique each other’s work. SCBWI Japan has been such a great support for me, helping me at every stage of the book’s conception to publication. If you are an aspiring Kidlit writer, I highly recommend joining SCBWI.


Me: What's next up on your writing sleeves? Please tell us briefly about it.

Leza: I’m working on a new YA novel about an ordinary boy with extraordinary powers, and the girl who loves to hate him. It’s a love story with a little magic and some quantum physics.


Me: Thanks Leza for joining me today on this interview session. I wish you luck for all your future endeavors.

Leza: Thanks Aditi for all you do. Keep reading and writing!
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Leza's Bio:



I'm a California girl living in Tokyo, where I write and run a yoga studio. For over two decades, I've been charting my quest in twenty books in many genres. I hope I'm just getting started.
I’m interested in ideas of identity and history. How is culture shaped, and how are we shaped by it? All of my books deal with notions of finding home.
"Up from the Sea," my debut Young Adult novel in verse about the March 11, 2011 Japan tsunami, is just out from Crown Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House. It's about making a home within yourself when the only home you've ever known is destroyed. Named a #1 YA pick by BUZZFEED:http://www.buzzfeed.com/farrahpenn/ya...
My memoir, "Here Comes The Sun" charts my quest for motherhood across two decades, two continents, and two thousand yoga poses. Its about creating connection and family--finding a home in each other, and in the world.
"Jet Black and the Ninja Wind," a YA adventure I co-wrote with my Japanese husband, is about a biracial girl seeking home across cultures. Her mission is to save her ancestral home and its ancient treasure.
Then there's the poetry. "Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By" deals with finding a home in one’s body. "Yoga Heart: Lines on the Six Perfections" charts the path to finding a home in the spirit.
I often write with my husband, the Middle Grade novelist Shogo Oketani (author of J-Boys, Kazuo's World, Tokyo, 1965 (translated by Avery Udagawa) about five fifth graders growing up during the first Tokyo Olympics). Building a bridge from East to West, we’ve collaborated on a book about kanji, a collection of poetry by a pacifist Japanese soldier, and the Jet Black trilogy in progress. Other couples finish each other’s sentences. We try to finish each other’s books.
Other Stuff people ask about: My writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Yoga Journal, Shambhala Sun, The Best Buddhist Writing, The Japan Times, Art in America, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.
I've been fortunate to have received some literary awards, including the APALA Asia Pacific Award in Young Adult Literature, a SCBWI Work-in-Progress Fiction Honor grant, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, The PEN Josephine Miles Award for Poetry, individual grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the California Arts Council. Shogo and I received The U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission Award from Columbia University for the Translation of Japanese Literature. I've also received the Benjamin Franklin Award for Editorial Excellence, and three Pushcart Prize nominations.
I have a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. I've taught writing and literature there and at the University of Tokyo. I teach yoga and meditation internationally.
I love reading, dogs, and chocolate--preferably all at the same time. Thanks for stopping by.



Connect with Leza on: Website Facebook Twitter | GoodReads


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