Summer 2008
MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT
Summer Reading Contest
Win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate!
The first thirty entries received that include their mailing address with the correct answers to the questions below will receive MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT bookmarks. ALL entries received by SEPTEMBER 1, 2008 with the correct answers will be eligible for a drawing of two lucky winners of $25 Amazon Gift Certificates.
Click >HERE< to send in your entry. Write your mailing address and answers to questions in the Message box. Addresses will not be used for any other purposes than for this contest.
Winners will be notified and announced during the first week of September on this News page.
MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT Summer Reading Contest Questions:
What is the name of:
1. Shinji’s girlfriend?
2. The American TV soap Midori becomes addicted to?
3. The guy Midori meets whose obsession is marrying Japanese women so they can get green cards?
Good Luck!
Wendy's second book for St. Martin's Griffin is due out in Spring 2009.
The publisher came up with a great title: LOVE IN TRANSLATION. Here's a brief description:
After receiving a puzzling phone call and a box full of mysteries, 33-year-old fledgling singer Celeste Duncan is off to Japan to search for a long, lost relative who could hold the key to the identity of the father she never knew. She stumbles head first into a weird, wonderful world where nothing is quite as it seems; a land of gaijin worshippers, karaoke boxes, sushi fortune tellers, and unbearably perky TV stars. But when she learns to sing a Japanese song called “The Wishing Star” Celeste finds herself on the path to discovering her own voice and the realization that love can transcend culture.
Wendy is happy to be the guest columnist for Left Coast Writers' Road Work for July/August. Read her essay on the heartbreak of agent speed dating >here<.
Spring 2008
RedRoom.com now has a video of Wendy reading from "Midori By Moonlight" at Litquake in October 2007.
Wendy was recently interviewed by Kim Alexander for Fiction Nation on XM radio. The interview will be broadcast the week of April 19.
Click here for channel info and showtimes.
Winter 2008
Fall 2007
Borders Sunnyvale Signing
December 1, 2007
Wendy and her friend Etsuko.
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Read the review of Midori By Moonlight in the San Francisco Chronicle here.
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MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT Launch Party at Ink Spell Books
- Half Moon Bay, CA - September 29, 2007
(Heather Plunkett and Cindi Whittemore - owners of Ink Spell Books)
Wendy at Sonoma Book Fair - September 15, 2007
Summer 2007
An interview with me by Suzanne Kamata is up now at the Women on Writing zine.
Check out my MySpace page and come be my friend.
Spring 2007
Midori by Moonlight has been selected for
St. Martin's Read It First program.
Midori by Moonlight now has cover art and will be out in September 2007.
MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT – A Novel by Wendy Nelson Tokunaga
A smart and witty tale that explores the theme of why some people feel the need to trade in their native culture for a new one.
St. Martin’s Press, Available September 2007
ISBN: 0312372612
Midori Saito's dream seems about to come true. Too independent for Japanese society, Midori is a young woman who has always felt like a stranger in her native land. So when she falls in love with Kevin, an American English teacher, she readily agrees to leave home and start a new life with him in San Francisco—as his fiancée. Kevin seems to be the perfect man. That is, until he dumps her for his blond ex-fiancée, whom Midori never even knew existed. With just a smattering of fractured English, not much cash, and a fiancée visa set to expire in 60 days, Midori realizes she’s in for quite a struggle. Unable to face the humiliation of telling her parents she's been jilted, she decides to go it alone, surprising even herself as she proves she will do almost anything to hang on to her “American Dream.”
Advance Praise for Midori by Moonlight
“Wendy Nelson Tokunaga's charming heroine 'severed the seven-thousand-mile umbilical chord' and moved to San Francisco to marry Kevin. Ditched a week later, Midori Saito ("crisis is her middle name"), takes us with her on an American adventure. Midori is endearing, feisty and funny; the novel is a delight.”
–Ellen Sussman, editor of Bad Girls and author of On a Night Like This
“It's a shame there isn't a word to convey 'more charming than charming' because that's exactly what Wendy Nelson Tokunaga's MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT is, a delightful fusion of East meeting West, as if Banana Yoshimoto and Meg Cabot got together to create a romantic comedy.”
-Lauren Baratz-Logsted, author of Vertigo
“Midori by Moonlight is part wasabi, part ginger, and as scrumptious as a California roll. You'll devour this book in a day!”
–Cara Lockwood, bestselling author of Dixieland Sushi
“Wendy Nelson Tokunaga finds grace, strength and humor in Midori Saito’s unlikely and highly entertaining journey from jilted fiancée into an enterprising young businesswoman who is determined to make it on her own in San Francisco. Shedding light on Japanese culture and modern dating, relating and living woes, Nelson Tokunaga
–Margo Candela, author of Life Over Easy blends both with an insider’s eye for nuance and a real love for her characters. Delightfully sweet, just like Midori.”
Winter 2006
Midori by Moonlight is now scheduled to debut sometime in Fall 2007.
Fall 2006
Sept. 25, 2006 - from Publisher's Marketplace:
Wendy Nelson Tokunaga's MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT, which follows the misadventures of a Japanese Bridget Jones who has escaped the straitjacket society of Japan to start a new life in San Francisco, only to find that her American Dream isn't all it's cracked up to be, to Jennifer Weis at St. Martin's, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (World English).
Summer 2006
Wendy is represented by literary agent Marly Rusoff of the Rusoff Agency.
She is currently hard at work getting her MFA in Creative Writing.