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Wendy's current books include:

Yumi: Memoirs of a Japanese Teen Idol – A Novel by Wendy Tokunaga

When 15-year-old Yumi Kitazawa is discovered on the streets of Tokyo’s Harajuku and becomes the top teen idol in Japan, she thinks all her dreams have come true. But a doomed love affair with her producer and a major scandal make her a has-been by the time she’s eighteen. Wanting to escape from the paparazzi, she ends up in San Francisco where she stumbles upon an old record by an obscure 1970s hippie rock star named Christine Eastbrook, whose voice is so full of pain that Yumi feels she “would be able to understand what I went through.” Now obsessed with Christine, Yumi tries to track her down, only to end up meeting her 35-year-old daughter Nicole who tells Yumi that her idol died from an overdose of drugs years ago. Nicole and Yumi form a strong bond, which leads to Yumi living in Christine Eastbrook’s old house in the San Francisco Haight-Ashbury. A series of events—including a tragic fire—lead to Yumi’s self-discovery in finding her own voice. She overcomes her turbulent past and returns to Japan, makes a comeback as a serious musical artist, and gains a “big sister” in Nicole.

Falling Uphill – A Novel by Wendy Tokunaga

“Ruth Fenton is dead, but what does that have to do with me?” That’s what Hayley Grey, 29, wants to know after receiving a puzzling phone message from San Francisco. A bright, but slightly absent-minded anthropology teacher at a small Michigan college, Hayley is all set to leave for Los Angeles to conduct research on 1960s TV star Pamela Parrish—America’s Sitcom Sweetheart—for her Master’s thesis on television and female gender roles. But after discovering that Ruth Fenton is a long, lost relative, she’s off to San Francisco for her memorial service where she meets a crazy(?) old lady who claims Pamela Parrish didn’t commit suicide like everybody says—she was murdered. Now Hayley has to get to the bottom of it, all while fighting the nagging feeling that her long-time professor boyfriend back home is getting a little too close with one of his students, and at the same time wondering if new-found friend Brandon, a newspaper reporter and budding painter who lives on a hidden stairway street in the hills of San Francisco, is really the guy for her. It’s a funny, but moving, uphill climb for Hayley who finds that things are rarely what they seem, whether she’s finding her true love among the charming stairway streets in San Francisco, discovering a shocking secret about her not-so-perfect mother, or unearthing the surprising truth behind the death of America’s Sitcom Sweetheart.
 

Midori By Moonlight – A Novel by Wendy Tokunaga

Thirty-year-old Midori Saito’s dreams are all about to come true. A strong independent streak has always made her feel like a stranger in a strange land in her native Japan, but now she’s embarking on a new life in San Francisco. She’s about to marry Kevin, the perfect American man—six feet tall, with curly hair the color of marmalade. Unlike a Japanese guy who’d demand she be a housewife, Kevin doesn’t mind if Midori follows her dream of becoming a master pastry chef. Her life is turning out as exquisitely as a Caramelized Apple Tart with Crème Fraiche, that is until Kevin dumps her at their engagement party in favor of his blonde, ex-fiancée, whom Midori never even knew existed.

Now Midori is not only on her own—with just a smattering of fractured English in her repertoire—she’s entered the U.S. on a fiancée visa that will expire in sixty days. Unable to face the humiliation of telling her parents she’s been dumped, and not wanting to give up on her American dream, Midori realizes she’s “up the creek without a saddle.” Her only hope is new acquaintance Shinji, 30, who long ago escaped Japan after a family tragedy, is a successful San Francisco graphic artist and amateur moon gazer, and who lets her share his apartment as a platonic roommate.

Soon Midori finds herself working at an under-the-table hostess job at an unsavory Japanese karaoke bar, making (and eating) way too many desserts, meeting a charming and handsome chef with his own restaurant who may be too good to be true, and trying to uncover the secret behind a mysterious bar hostess who looks strangely familiar. But Midori’s willing to endure almost anything to hang on to her American dream, and she just might find that the love she’s been searching for far and wide is a whole lot closer than she thinks.

* * *

Summer 2004

Wendy attended the 2004 Maui Writers Conference over Labor Day Weekend, September 2 through 6. This was her first time at the conference and her second trip to Maui. It was a great opportunity for Wendy and Manabu to take a vacation that combined her interest in writing and his interest in surfing, and they ended up staying on the island for two glorious weeks. (Note: Wendy lost her surfing virginity in Maui and, while it was a lot of fun, she could not manage to stand up on the board, although she was able to kneel and catch a few waves).

The Maui conference was nice enough, but it is expensive and you might want to look into other conferences closer to you that cost less and give you more bang for your buck. (A good source for writers’ conference listings is at Shaw Guides). For example, Maui charges extra fees to pitch to an agent or editor, while other conferences often include this as part of the conference price. The accent at Maui seems to be more on publishing than the craft of writing, but they do offer a Writers Retreat held the week before the conference that concentrates on craft. However, this is quite expensive as well and Wendy did not attend the Retreat.

Still, there were a number of high profile writers who spoke at Maui who gave interesting talks. Some of the highlights for Wendy were: Aaron Sorkin (creator of “The West Wing,” “A Few Good Men,” etc.); Wendy Wasserstein (Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright); Natalie Goldberg (“The Great Failure,” “Writing Down the Bones”); Karen Joy Fowler (“The Jane Austen Book Club”); Gail Tsukiyama (“Women of the Silk”); and Dorothy Allison (“Bastard Out of Carolina.”)