Hiromi Goto (born December 31, 1966 Chiba-ken, Japan) is a Japanese-Canadian editor, fiction writer, cultural critic, arts advocate, youth organizer, teacher of creative writing and a mother of two children.

Life[link]

She immigrated to Canada with her family in 1969. They lived on the west coast of British Columbia for eight years before moving to Nanton, Alberta, a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Goto is the current Writer-in-Residence of the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. She was also the Writer-in-Residence at Vancouver's Emily Carr School of Art and Design, Vancouver Public Library, and Simon Fraser University.

She earned her B.A. in English from the University of Calgary in 1989

Her eighty-year old grandmother told her Japanese stories when she was growing up. Her work is also influenced by her father’s life stories in Japan. These stories often featured ghosts and folk creatures such as the kappa — a small creature with a frog’s body, a turtle’s shell and a bowl-shaped head that holds water.

Her first novel, Chorus of Mushrooms, was the 1995 recipient of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book Canada and Caribbean Region' and the co-winner of the Canada-Japan Book Award. It has been released in Israel, Italy, and the UK. In 2001, she was awarded the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award and was short-listed for the regional Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, Best Book Award, the Sunburst Award and the Spectrum Award.

Chorus of Mushrooms is about finding one’s identity in the midst of alienation and explicit differences. The novel depicted the characters’ different approaches to assimilating themselves within the host country’s culture as well as symbolic meanings of locations and settings crafted in a language that combines the two opposite poles of majority and minority i.e. English and Japanese. The novel narrated that there can never be an easy way to erase ethnic differences and become immersed into one culture, Or can denying the truth of one’s ethnic origins help in the process. The key is to be able to personally accept that being different is by no means a reason to be alienated and regarded as abnormal. It can be a powerful reason to become a distinct individual who cannot be lost within cultures.

Bibliography[link]

• The Skin on Our Tongues. Calgary: Absinthe, 1993. (co-editor)
• Chorus of Mushrooms. Edmonton: NeWest, 1994.
• The Water of Possibility. Regina: Coteau, 2001. ISBN 1-55050-183-6
• The Kappa Child. Red Deer, AB: Red Deer, 2001.
• Hopeful Monsters. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004.
• Half World. Puffin Canada, 2009. ISBN 978-0-670-06965-1

References[link]

• http://www.hiromigoto.com/bibliography
• http://www2.athabascau.ca/cll/writers/english/writers/hgoto/biblio_by.php
• http://www.newestpress.com/catalog/authors/goto-hiromi.html
• http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-24315674_ITM
• http://www.indiebound.org/author-interviews/gotohiromi

External links[link]

• Official website
• Hiromi Goto at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

v t e Canada–Japan relations Japan People Mickey Curtis Glen Ennis Aaron Keller Ron Korb Herbert Marler R.W. Mayhew Monkey Majik Herbert Norman Maria Ozawa Richard Rochefort Barry Steers Mervin Tran Mel Wakabayashi Jai West Issues Japanese war crimes Places Canadian Academy Embassy of Canada, Tokyo List of Canadian ambassadors to Japan Events Canada WET Canada Japanese Canadians Ken Adachi Nobu and Mio Adilman Dennis Akayama David Akutagawa Severn Cullis-Suzuki Hiromi Goto Arthur S. Hara Kanao Inouye Mary Ito Robert Ito Hiro Kanagawa Martin Kariya Paul Kariya Steve Kariya Sarah Kawahara Andrew Kishino Roy Kiyooka Joy Kogawa (Obasan) Bruce Kuwabara Jon Matsumoto Nina Matsumoto Art Miki Roy Miki Masajiro Miyazaki Kenzo Mori Raymond Moriyama Issey Nakajima-Farran Paris Nakajima-Farran Kazuo Nakamura George Nozuka Justin Nozuka Philip Nozuka Bev Oda Kristy Odamura Midi Onodera John Kimura Parker Michelle Sagara Kerri Sakamoto Devin Setoguchi Tetsuro Shigematsu Aki Shimazaki Rick Shiomi Yellow Fever Thomas Shoyama Jeff Chiba Stearns Jennifer Spence Jamie Storr Vicky Sunohara David Suzuki Mutsumi Takahashi Takao Tanabe Miyuki Tanobe David Tsubouchi Masami Tsuruoka Irene Uchida Juhn Atsushi Wada Terry Watada Michelle Sagara West Ayaka Wilson Naomi Yamamoto Christine Yoshikawa Kimiko Zakreski Japanese in Canada Manzō Nagano Utako Wakamatsu Other people HIMEKA Jillian Michaels John Powles Bruce Ross Issues Japanese Canadian internment Reference re Persons of Japanese Race Events Powell Street Festival Places Embassy of Japan, Ottawa Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre Japantown, Vancouver Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temples of Canada Kuroki, Saskatchewan Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre Nitobe Memorial Garden Organisations Hitachi Canadian Industries Kokoro Dance National Association of Japanese Canadians Japan Canada Oil Sands Limited Sony Canada Works Minoru: Memory of Exile Obasan Skim Yellow Fever Other Ahadada Books Hiroshima Japanese Canadian Pacific Fleet

Jay Asher
Jay Asher at the 2011 Texas Book Festival.
Born	(1975-09-30) September 30, 1975 (age 36) Arcadia, California, United States
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Genres	Young Adult
Influences Chris Crutcher
www.thirteenreasonswhy.com

Jay Asher is an American writer of contemporary novels for teens. He has one major publication in the genre of young adult literature.

Biography[link]

Jay Asher was born in Arcadia, California on September 30, 1975. He grew up in a family that encouraged all of his interests, from playing the guitar to his writing. He attended College right after graduating from San Luis Obispo High School. It was here where he wrote his first two children’s books for a class called Children’s Literature Appreciation. After high school, he decided he wanted to become an elementary school teacher. He then transferred to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo where he left his senior year in order to pursue his career as a serious writer. He is married. Throughout his life he worked in various establishments, including as a salesman in a shoe store and in libraries and bookstores.^[1] Many of his work experiences had an impact on some aspect of his writing.

Career[link]

He has published two books to date, Thirteen Reasons Why, a 2007 New York Times best-selling young-adult fiction novel, and The Future of Us, co written by Carolyn Mackler.

He has written several picture books and middle school humor novels. Thirteen Reasons Why has won several awards and has received five stars from Teen Book Review. It also has received high praise from fellow authors such as Ellen Hopkins, Sherman Alexie, and Chris Crutcher,^[2] and Gordon Korman.

Asher is a fan of the TV series My So-Called Life.^[3] He cites it as a major influence on his work.

Published works[link]

• Thirteen Reasons Why (2007). This is the story of Hannah Baker, a girl who committed suicide. She reveals her thirteen reasons for her decision in a series of seven audio tapes mailed to a classmate with instructions to pass them from one student to another, in the style of a chain letter. Through Hannah's recorded voice, her classmates learn the reasons why Hannah decides to take her own life. Besides Hannah, the reader also sees the story through the eyes of Clay Jensen, one of the recipients of the tapes. Asher was inspired to write due to incidents that happened in his high school.

• The Future of Us (2011) This was co-written with Carolyn Mackler. This is the story of Josh and Emma, two teenagers who used to be best friends until a huge misunderstanding. In 1996, Josh helps Emma set up her internet, only to find Facebook - before it has been invented. There, they can see themselves 15 years in the future - status updates, information, friends, etc. Using Facebook, they are able to change their destinies.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official web site of Thirteen Reasons Why, featuring an interactive map of the town
• Disco Mermaids, A blog of three authors Robin Mellom, Jay Asher and Eve Porinchak
• New York Times article on Thirteen Reasons Why
• Play review in Daily Herald

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2012)

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.^[1]

History[link]

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[2][dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

It was also used as a term for a drug dealer in the 1950s and 1960s and can be seen in such media as Curtis Mayfield's "No Thing On Me", William Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch, and in the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting for the Man", in which Lou Reed sings about going to Uptown Manhattan, specifically Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, to buy heroin.

The use of this term was expanded to counterculture groups and their battles against authority, such as the Yippies, which, according to a May 19, 1969 article in U.S. News and World Report, had the "avowed aim ... to destroy 'The Man', their term for the present system of government". The term eventually found its way into humorous usage, such as in a December 1979 motorcycle ad from the magazine Easyriders which featured the tagline, "California residents: Add 6% sales tax for The Man."

In present day, the phrase has been popularized in commercials and cinema, featuring particularly prominently as a recurring motif in the 2003 film School of Rock.^[3][4][5][6]

Use as praise[link]

The term has also been used as an approbation or form of praise. This may refer to the recipient's status as the leader or authority within a particular context, or it might be assumed to be a shortened form of a phrase like "He is the man (who is in charge)." One example of this usage dates to 1879 when Otto von Bismarck commented, referring to Benjamin Disraeli's pre-eminent position at the Congress of Berlin, "The old Jew, he is the man."^{[7][dubious – discuss]}

In more modern usage, it can be a superlative compliment ("you da man!") indicating that the subject is currently standing out amongst his peers even though they have no special designation or rank, such as a basketball player who is performing better than the other players on the court. It can also be used as a genuine compliment with an implied, slightly exaggerated or sarcastic tone, usually indicating that the person has indeed impressed the speaker but by doing something relatively trivial.

See also[link]

• Absentee landlord
• Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
• New World Order (conspiracy theory)
• Ruling class
• The Establishment
• Power elite
• Corrections officer
• YTMND

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Lighter, J.E. (Ed.). (1997). Random House Dictionary of American Slang. New York: Random House.