"Writing in the Moment: An Interview with traci kato-kiriyama" by Sarah Olmedo

In life, many choices have to be made. Usually, the biggest decision involves our career path, where we often choose one specific thing to be, such as an accountant or teacher. In the arts, there’s a world of choices, from visual art to theater, photography to writing. traci kato-kiriyama (they + she) looked at this swath of options and decided to take part in them all, realizing their art career couldn’t take any singular path. They wanted to just keep creating as much, and in as many different mediums, as they pleased.
kato-kiriyama began her artistic career when she was eighteen or nineteen, writing for her local paper, Rafu Shimpo. This was an early seed to showing her what it was like to pen something and then have it published. Then in college, they joined a touring theater company, which opened up even more creative disciplines. This was their first big step toward the world of artistic creation.
Finding creative inspiration for all these projects would arguably be one of the hardest things to do, but kato-kiriyama sees a wealth of opportunity all around her. “Every day we are surrounded by the material,” kato-kiriyama explains, meaning that they find their inspiration from the world around them, and their own memories. She loves to build conversation and community with what she creates to inspire others, much like the world has inspired her. That’s one of the biggest reasons they love literary forms; with a poetry reading, you have three minutes to get people interested and move the conversation in a better direction, furthering creative dialogue in the community and spreading important messages of awareness. In their work, kato-kiriyama is always thinking about “actions big and small,” asking themself how they can use a piece to build upon their community.
What I love about kato-kiriyama’s process is that it’s so grounded and real. Sometimes, she writes an entire piece in one night, but other times she spends months researching and thinking on her own memory. What she always keeps in mind is to trust the process, and to always ask herself, “What is the moment calling you to do?” Rising to the challenge of doing something for that moment can be so difficult, but important and worthwhile. It’s facing that challenge that resulted in their latest book, Navigating With(out) Instruments: “The offer to do the book was coming at a time where… a lot of what was surfacing was some really hard stuff,” kato-kiriyama said. “It was starting to become really difficult to just sorta face…But it’s that thing where I have to face it and have to go towards it.” What kept them going was a quote that was paraphrased to them by a friend, “Write what it is you need to say, or you’ll die if you don’t.”  That quote really resonated with her. “That’s why I need this book,” she told me. “I need to have a thing where I can go in and through a process where I’m facing these things [that are] starting to hurt me inside. It’s starting to hurt carrying it.” So, kato-kiriyama took the book as an opportunity to really process their feelings and express what they were going through.
Even though it was an incredibly difficult challenge, one they even ran from at times, kato-kiriyama is now ultimately relieved that their book is out in the world after eight years of working on it, and that they’ve expressed themselves through this writing. I’m also incredibly glad for their work, because while I haven’t yet read all of Navigating With(out) Instruments, what I have read is incredibly impactful. She writes about personal experiences of struggling with wanting a child, of adopting or having the child herself. Their poems discuss the heart of dreaming of a child and the life they’d have, if only they could have them. Then, they dive into the pain of their cancer diagnosis; my personal favorite is “Week of Diagnosis—day 1—The Things A Doctor Should Never Say.” I’ve spent too much time in hospitals and kato-kiriyama really articulates the experience of handling diagnosis and doctors well within this poem. More still, they write about their experiences with grief, loss, and depression. Their writing is resonant and truly shows the depth of processing and fighting through all kinds of moments.
The meaning behind the book, its reason for existing, and kato-kiriyama’s own process are incredibly inspiring. They’ve motivated me to continue my own writing and to trust my own process, and I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels this way. More on kato-kiriyama’s work can be found at their website, http://www.traciakemi.com, or their Instagram, @traciakemi1. NavigatingWith(out) Instruments can be purchased here.

Sarah Olmedo

Sarah Olmedo is currently studying Professional Writing at Woodbury University in Los Angeles. She has read as part of the open mic at the First Press Reading Series, and she’s also an artist of traditional and digital media. When she’s not writing, she spends time doing illustrative character design and comics for future stories and projects.