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2nd Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest


June 29, 2015 - Oct. 12, 2015

The Little Tokyo Historical Society conducted its second annual short story (fiction) writing contest which concluded on April 22, 2015 at a reception in Little Tokyo in which the winners and finalists were announced. Last year's contest was entirely in English whereas this year's contest also had a youth category and a Japanese-language category, with cash prizes awarded for each category. The only requirement (other than the story could not exceed 2,500 words or 5,000 Japanese characters) was that the story had to involve Little Tokyo in some creative manner.

Winners (First Place)

Some of the Finalists to be featured are:

      English:

      Youth:

      Japanese (Japanese only)


*Read stories from other Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contests:

1st Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
3rd Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
4th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
5th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
6th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
7th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
8th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
9th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>
10th Annual Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest >>


fiction Little Tokyo

Stories from this series

For a Look at New Worlds

Aug. 31, 2015 • Jerome Stueart

Every generation has an obligation to free men’s mindsfor a look at new worlds…to look out from a higherplateau than the last generation. —Ellison S. Onizuka Griff Onizuka stood in front of his great-great-grandfather’s memorial, a swirl of brightly coloured paper cranes flew around the 27-foot-high copy of the Space Shuttle Challenger, the brass base, the face of Ellison S. Onizuka. As if caught in a beautiful pastel tornado of little wings, the monument had its picture taken from hundreds …

The Tempura King

Aug. 24, 2015 • Kent Morizawa

They called Nozomi the Tempura King of Little Tokyo. He manned the tempura bar at the Tokyo Kaikan restaurant, holding court each night and delighting guests with his wizardry. People came from all over Los Angeles to enjoy Nozomi’s perfectly crisp and flavorful tempura. A lot went into making it perfect, but the real secret was in the oil. Not too hot or the outside would burn and leave the inside raw. Not too cold or the batter would soak …

Little Tokyo Daikagura

Aug. 17, 2015 • Yuriko Kondo

“Wow! Mom look at that guy juggling so many balls!” A little boy's voice grazes my ears. I'm glad that he's pleased with my juggling, which I've only just started practicing, but I still feel a little embarrassed and ticklish. And, as always, people pass by on the street corners of Little Tokyo, and I become part of the scenery and time passes. My darkened elbows and hands are like a different creature as I go to pick up the …

Both Alike in Dignity

Aug. 10, 2015 • Chester Sakamoto

It wasn’t like Mr. Muncznik to get lost. Then again, his mind wasn’t what it used to be. Every Sunday, he would take the bus to visit his old friend, Berek, in Pasadena. On this particular Sunday, however, his mind had slipped, causing him to get off far earlier than he anticipated. Now, he found himself wandering the streets of Little Tokyo. Despite the fact that he was lost, Mr. Muncznik delighted in the sights with a kind of fascination. …

All Along This Road

Aug. 3, 2015 • Don Fenton

Kenji saw her, or at least, he thought he saw her shoes cross East Second Street. They were silver Oxfords that looked like they had been spray-painted metallic silver. It wasn’t the oddest article of clothing he saw around the Japanese Village Plaza though, which was packed with tourists and women dressed in out-of-season kimonos, twirling neon pink paper parasols, and wearing rainbow shades of eye shadow. It was also full of Cosplay people that looked like androgynous anime characters …

Midori’s Magic

July 27, 2015 • Sarena Kuhn

I shivered as I squinted my eyes, intensely focused on the many windows of the Miyako Hotel. There were dimly-lit rooms, rooms where I could distinguish animated silhouettes, rooms that were dark as the sky, but I still couldn’t figure out which window belonged to our room. Despite my concentration, this did little to diminish the cold that was creeping through my body and making my poor teeth chatter. No one had thought it fitting to warn me that a …

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Authors in This Series

Nathaniel J. Campbell lives and writes in Fairfield, Iowa, but he dreams of being able to spend more time in Little Tokyo. He has been published over a dozen times in print and online in venues including Lincoln Memorial University's Drafthorse Literary Journal and the New School's Eleven and A Half Journal. He works for a small university press and loves reading and writing in his free time.

Updated October 2015


Don Fenton received a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and a MA in Humanities with an emphasis in Aesthetics from the University of Texas at Dallas. He is currently working on a collection of short stories that reflect multicultural influences and their intersection within American culture, which mirrors his own global upbringing as Japanese-Mexican American. Don currently teaches English as a Second Language in
Dallas, Texas. When he is not teaching, he is writing.

Updated August 2014


Rubén “Funkahuatl” Guevara is a native Angelino and over the past 50 years has worked as a musician, record producer, journalist, poet, film actor, playwright-performance-theater artist, teacher, and activist. He is a UCLA graduate in World Arts & Cultures and lives and works in Boyle Heights. www.tantrikfunk.net.

Updated October 2014


After 15 years of working life in Tokyo, I finally achieved my dream of studying at a graduate school in the United States. I first went to Little Tokyo to shop for Japanese ingredients, but as I learned more about the history of Japanese Americans, I became interested in the drama behind it. Since then, I have visited the Japanese American National Museum and read documents, and I try to learn whenever I can. My specialty is psychology, so I hope to continue to learn about different types of life and understand the human heart.

(Updated August 2015)


Sarena Kuhn attends Los Alamitos High School. She enjoys learning, writing, and going on adventures. With a Japanese American mother and a Caucasian father, she is proud to be “hapa” and values the importance of preserving and sharing culture.  She has strong passions for literature and working with others. 

Updated September 2016


Kent is a second generation Japanese American attorney and part-time writer. In his free time he likes to enjoy all that Southern California has to offer, including perpetual 72 degree weather, sandy beaches, and Dodger baseball. He lives in Glendale, California with his girlfriend and their two precocious cats.

Updated August 2015


Jan Morrill was born and (mostly) raised in California. Her mother, a Buddhist Japanese American, was an internee at Tule Lake and Topaz during World War II. Her father, a Southern Baptist redhead of Irish descent, retired from the Air Force. Jan’s award-winning historical fiction, The Red Kimono, and other short stories and memoir essays reflect growing up in a multicultural, multi-religious, multi-political background.

While working on the sequel to The Red Kimono, Jan enjoys conducting workshops on writing and speaking about the history of the Japanese American internment. For more information, please visit Jan’s website at www.janmorrill.com.

Updated June 2015


Kiyoshi Parker was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He shares heritages with two countries: America and Japan, and spends time between the two whenever possible. He taught himself Japanese in his late teens. He has some critical success as an author with his novelette, The Death of Death, currently available on Amazon. His other full length novella, Autonomously Yours, is also available on Amazon, and he is currently working on several more short stories and another full length fantasy novel. He enjoys graphic design, television, and film.

Updated June 2015


Chester Sakamoto is a self-proclaimed bibliophile and avid reader. A 26-year-old native of Los Angeles, he is currently in pursuit of an M.A. in English with an emphasis in American Literature. He enjoys singing, food, cinema, and frequent trips to independent bookstores.

Updated July 2015


Born in Saitama Prefecture. Graduated from Kokugakuin University in 2002. Works in accounting and general affairs, and writes in his free time. Currently, in addition to novels, he also writes scripts for rakugo, and hopes that one day his works will see the light of day.

(Updated January 2016)


Jerome Stueart is an Ohio-based fiction writer whose work has been published in Geist, Fantasy, Lightspeed, Joyland, and other journals and anthologies. He is the co-editor of Wrestling With Gods, a speculative fiction anthology that looks at faith, and of Imaginarium 4: the Best Canadian Speculative Writing. His first novel, One Nation Under Gods, re-imagines a U.S. History with “divine help,” and is due out November 2016. He writes, paints, and sketches and lives with a bear in Vandalia, OH. Find him at jeromestueart.com.

Updated August 2015


I am currently a senior at Temescal Canyon High School and will be attending Soka University of America this fall. While I hope to pursue a career in speech language pathology, I also want to continue writing in congruence to my studies. I am a very proud Cambodian American. My father arrived in California in the 1970s to escape the Khmer Rouge, and my mother in the 1990s. My parents came to America with nothing but a willingness to learn a language and culture they didn’t yet know, and seeing this dedication as a young child made me grow into loving reading and writing.

Updated September 2015


Born in 1936. Mother of three. Worked in the accounting department of San Joquin County, California for 30 years. Founded the poetry magazine "Koncho" in 2002. Currently, 103 issues have been published. Published works in magazines such as "Heisei", Nikkan Sun, "Poem Town", and "Nihon Futurism". Poem collections include "Milky Way" and "Patchwork Voice". Edited "Koncho 100th Issue Commemorative Selection".

(Updated September 2015)


Hans Weidman is a financial analyst in Los Angeles, California. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from UCLA.

Updated September 2015