R. A. Sasaki is a third-generation San Franciscan. She is the author of The Loom and Other Stories (1991, Graywolf Press). A past winner of the Japanese American National Literary Award, she has been published in Story, Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, The Short Story Review, Making Waves, Into the Fire, and other anthologies. Her stories have been broadcast on NPR’s “Selected Shorts.”
Since 2018 she has volunteered as the editor of the Topaz Stories project–gathering, editing, and in some cases, ghost-writing anecdotes from Topaz survivors or their descendants. She created the Topaz Stories website in 2021. As of 2025, the collection has over 100 stories, and selected stories have been exhibited at J-Sei (Emeryville, 2019 and 2024); the Utah State Capitol (2022); and the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (2025). You can follow @topazstories on Instagram.
Dear Ms. Sasaki,
I am so happy to find you are blogging! I’m a Sansei writer originally from Northern California. I wrote about THE LOOM many years ago, as an undergraduate student at Cal in the mid’90s. (I think I even wrote to you, but was also very shy.) I went to graduate school, became an English professor, and am now a freelance writer. I hope you are well and I am hoping you are writing something new; I have hoped to see more of your work ever since THE LOOM. Thank you for your work!
Sincerely, Tamiko Nimura
Terrific! Congratulations and kudos for taking the plunge to be a writer! Your web site looks better than mine! 🙂
http://tamikonimura.net – check it out, folks. I enjoyed the piece on your father on Facebook and look forward to reading more.
Ruth
Thank you! It’s a huge thrill to hear from you. I look forward to reading more blog posts here and seeing more of your writing!
Tamiko
Ms. Sasaki, I landed upon your story because it is in my literature book and our English teacher (8th Grade) has assigned us to read it and I must say that it is absolutely interesting.
Thank you, Ash. I’m happy to hear that you think so. You probably have stories inside you, too…
Ms. Sasaki – thank you so much for your site. I haven’t had a chance to read through it all yet but plan to.
A little background – I grew up in SF Chinatown in the early 1970’s, before my family moved to the Sunset District. I did a lot of volunteer work and was also a swim teacher at the Chinatown YMCA back in the day. Then I started volunteering at Kimochi Senior Center in Japantown and got involved with the community there – Nihonmachi Street Fair, Cherry Blossom Festival, etc. – anyways a lot of your stories in The Loom resonated with me since the Japantown community was where I spent so much time.
I attended UC Berkeley 1988-92 and I think the one and only time I intentionally skipped a class was when I picked up The Loom and read it in one sitting in my dorm room. That’s a good thing, I guess?
We met once very briefly a long time ago. I had purchased a generically autographed copy of The Loom (I think from Cody’s Bookstore in Berkeley, RIP). Then I brought it with me to a reading you did at JCCCNC and asked you to personalize your autograph which you graciously did. Your comment at the time was something like – That’s bad news if there are still autographed copies available. I had to tell you I’d bought the book a long time ago.
Anyway thanks for sharing this site and your stories. They were an inspiration to me then and still.
Allbert, thank you for your message. It’s always wonderful to hear from readers — especially fellow native San Franciscans! I’m honored that your one “intentional skip” in college was to read my book.
Ah, Cody’s — RIP indeed. So many great things are no longer; but that’s why we write, no? To keep the stories alive.
I have enjoyed reading your short stories, particularly Wild Mushrooms and Seattle. I get the subtleties ’cause I was married to a Japanese woman.
After reading “Wrong Then, Wrong Now,” may I ask if your family who immigrated here did so legally? I just want to make sure the comparison is analogous. Of course, the internment was horribly wrong. After all German-Americans were allowed to fight Germans, but Japanese-Americans were not allowed to fight the Japanese–all based on appearance.
Glad you enjoyed the stories. Not all non-Japanese who are married to Japanese women “get the subtleties,” so I congratulate you. In response to your question, yes, my family members who immigrated to this country did so legally. But I’m not sure what you mean by an “analogous comparison.” Being singled out for persecution on the basis of 1) racial appearance or country of ancestral origins and 2) an underlying fear of jobs being taken away or economic competition; and 3) disregarding the fact that many/most/all targeted are law-abiding, tax-paying and hard-working family members who may become separated from their children, parents, etc. — that seems pretty analogous to me.
Also, although initially banned from enlisting in the U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans began serving in great numbers when the ban was lifted in 1943. Some like my dad’s cousin served in the Pacific, coming face-to-face with former school friends in Japan who had been conscripted into the Japanese army. Most Nisei soldiers went to Europe as part of the famous 442/100th battalions.
Hi Ms. Sasaki,
I am a big fan of your work and I chose to write a paper on you! Is there anything that you would mind sharing about yourself personally?
Maybe what inspired you to write? How has writing impacted your life? What is your favorite piece of writing that you have done?
Thank You
Thank you, Jasmine. I believe you can find many responses to the questions you asked in the “Talking About Writing” category in this web site. I give some biographical information and discuss what inspired me to write in the piece called “How much of it is true.” There’s more on what motivated me to start writing in “Writing What You Know/Why I write what I know.” I talk about the question of having a favorite piece in “Where Stories Come From.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever talked about writing’s impact on me in this site. But if you can bear with me, I will do so in future posts!