Happy Ice Cream, by Chie Kato. (Marbletron Inc.)     NEW TALENTS ON THE LITERARY SCENE: The Keywords are "Young Girls" and "IT" April 4, 2002 Changes are rocking the literary scene, which has been dominated by experienced authors until now. A high school girl has won a literary prize for emerging authors, and a man has written in the persona of a young girl. Large numbers of amateur authors are active on the Internet, and the spread of Internet technology seems to be playing a role in the appearance of new talents. Traditional Poetry Finds Modern Expression An unusual new poet, a twelfth-grade student named Chie Kato (Site is Japanese only), appeared in the world of tanka (31-syllable poems) in summer 2001. Her first collection of poetry, Happi Aisukurimu (Happy Ice Cream), has sold 8,000 copies - an unusual occurrence in a genre where initial runs of 1,000 are considered large. Tanka, traditional short poems, are usually written in classical Japanese and speak of love and the seasons, but Kato writes of going out with friends and her feelings of love and loneliness in the everyday language of high school girls. Her ability to express perfectly and in a few words the feelings that everyone has but cannot describe has won her many fans - everyone from girls her own age to veteran poets. She first became serious about writing tanka after entering high school, and she began putting up her creations on her website. She also posted her tanka on the message board of a website run by tanka poet Koichi Masuno. The poems caught the attention of Masuno, who acted as her agent in getting them published. Now Kato is a celebrity with her own program on a local radio station and a regular spot in a fashion magazine that is popular among high school girls. When she gets an idea for a poem, she says, she inputs it into her cell phone. Virtual Reality   Your Name What did you think of this article? It was interesting. It was boring. Send this article to a friend Trends in Japan Home Also in 2001, Risa Wataya, another twelfth grade student, became the youngest person ever to win the prestigious Bungei Award, a literary prize for newcomers. Her prize-winning work Insutoru (Install) tells of a truant high school girl who joins with a computer-savvy elementary school boy to earn money with a part-time job impersonating a married woman in an x-rated chat room. Wataya says that her account of commuting freely between fantasy and reality and between being an adult and being a young girl is based on her own experience in music- and art-related chat rooms. Besides, she notes, "All kinds of information that I needed for the story was available on the Net." Insutoru was published in November 2001 and sold 150,000 copies in three months. Another unusual figure has appeared on the scene, a man writing tanka in the persona of a young girl. Tegamima Mami, Natsu no Hikkoshi (Usagi Zure) (Letter Freak Mami Moves House in Summer [with Her Rabbit]) is the first poetry collection in nine years by Hiroshi Homura, considered one of the standard-bearers of new-wave tanka. The volume, which appeared in September 2001, posits a series of letters from a fictional young girl in the form of tanka, and the poems describe such everyday activities as writing letters, eating sweets, and getting a cold. Though eccentric in that a man writes in a female voice, the book is signature Homura in that it expresses the joys and pains of youth. The Blossoming of Online Authors One of the reasons mentioned for this emergence of young writers is the spread of information technology. There are increasing numbers of "Net authors" who put their works up on their own websites or submit their works by e-mail to Internet-based creative writing groups. In the past, most authors spent hours writing manuscripts by hand, but now anyone who has a computer and a bit of time after school or during vacations can gather materials and polish off a rough draft. There are even "thumb authors" who tap out short short stories on their cell phones. It looks as if more and more authors are going to use the Internet to make their literary debuts. Copyright (c) 2002 Japan Information Network. Edited by Japan Echo Inc. based on domestic Japanese news sources. Articles presented here are offered for reference purposes and do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Japanese Government.