BIOGRAPHY
Emily Yamauchi is a second-generation Japanese American writer and multidisciplinary artist based in Oakland, California. She writes fiction, essays, hybrid work, graphic novel/memoir and comics. Her work has been supported by fellowships and residencies from Kundiman, Hedgebrook, VONA, Real Time & Space, A Place of Her Own and others, and has been featured in various readings and exhibitions. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California and BA from Brown University. Emily’s work disrupts the silent agreements that hold together historically engrained or ancestral patterns of behavior, and insists that new patterns are possible, playing with memory, ambiguity, form and nonlinear storytelling to uncover and understand our private and communal lives.
PROJECT
During her residency, Emily plans to continue work on her hybrid graphic novel/memoir exploring her connection with estranged siblings. In the work, a conspicuous crack in the façade of their families’ silence, previously forged shut, begins to unlock in all directions. As their relationships grow, the course of her family’s history shifts. This is traced through the stories of migration from Japan, war and imprisonment in U.S. concentration camps, displacement, and missed connections. In Fes, Emily will continue exploring her journey as an ancestral pattern shifter—someone who interrupts family patterns, heals and creates new ones by allowing herself to experience a new way in the world. She hopes that part of this journey will be in community and conversation, engaging in opportunities for others to share their stories with one another through both informal talks and workshops. She remains open to being guided by her intuition throughout her residency and allowing her art to take shape in various forms. She also looks forward to learning firsthand about traditional crafts from makers in Fes and continuing her recent foray into pottery and love of textiles, exploring storytelling through objects.
