On Saturday, November 13, the University of St. Francis English Department will host the 30th annual St. Francis Writers’ Conference, featuring poet Naoko Fujimoto as keynote speaker. This conference gives students the opportunity to share multimodal writing and gain presentation experience outside of the classroom.
Naoko Fujimoto was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan where she attended school at Nanzan Junior College. She then became an exchange student at Indiana University, where she received both a B.A. and an M.A. Some of her recent work appears or is forthcoming in POETRY, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse and The Arkansas International.
Fujimoto is the author of “Glyph: Graphic Poetry=trans. Sensory,” a multi-media graphic art book that relays the work of translating sources, events, and emotional revelations into text (Tupelo Press, 2021). Additionally, she is the author of “Where I Was Born” (Willow Publishing, 2019), and three chapbooks, or short books of poetry.
Assistant Professor of English Elizabeth McDermott looks forward to the event and the presentation by Fujimoto.
“The exciting aspect of the 30th annual St. Francis Writers’ Conference, in addition to the students’ presentations, is the interactive keynote. Naoko Fujimoto is leading conference attendees in a graphic poetry exercise, and attendees will leave the keynote with their very own graphic poem,” McDermott said. “Fujimoto previously visited my Introduction to Creative Writing course, and the students really enjoyed her workshop style because she took them through her process step-by-step, inviting them to become inspired by the relationship between words and images.”
Naoko Fujimoto is an associate and outreach translation editor at RHINO Poetry, as well as a senior translation editor at Tupelo Quarterly. You can learn more about Fujimoto by visiting her website here, and if you are curious about her artistic process, check out this YouTube video: youtube.com/watch?v=eL42xuov0C0.
To learn more about the St. Francis Writers’ Conference or to RSVP, visit stfrancis.edu/sfwc or email sfwc@stfrancis.edu!
