Ep 191 - Writing, Yoga, Activism: a conversation with Tamiko Nimura

Spiritual Grit

To help celebrate Filipino American History month, I've got special guest, author, Tamiko Nimura on the show! Yay!

It's easy to forget that we are spirit souls having a human experience. We get wrapped up in what our eyes see and the crazy scrawl our minds make in our heads. In this week's episode, I want to shine a light on things we don't often see or pay attention to. Today I sit down with author Tamiko Nimura to talk about the (invisible) writing process (often, readers think that we poop out perfect books! Haha), how yoga can be the bridge between the physical and emotional/spiritual experience of being a human, and what it means to be an activist (hint: it's not just marching in rallies).

Listen in on this conversation that highlights how times of intense distress can foster the creation of new, surprising things (like a spontaneous course on civil rights!) and how we can reconnect with our inner selves (hint: it's yoga - haha!).

About Tamiko Nimura:

Tamiko Nimura is an Asian American creative nonfiction writer living in Tacoma, Washington. She has degrees in English from UC Berkeley (BA) and the University of Washington, Seattle (MA, PhD). Her poems, essays and interviews have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Off Assignment, Narratively, The Rumpus, Full Grown People, Heron Tree, HYPHEN, Kartika Review, and Blue Cactus Press. She has essays in the anthologies Ghosts of Seattle Past (2018) and New California Writing (Heyday 2012). At UC Berkeley, she studied creative writing with Ishmael Reed and Gary Soto. She has read at the Looseleaf Reading series (Seattle), King’s Books and Blue Cactus Press (Tacoma), and the San Francisco Public Library. She is a 2016 Artists Up grant recipient and a 2019 GAP Award recipient.

She has been awarded a Tacoma Arts Commission Tacoma Artists Initiative Project grant (2021-22) for her memoir-in-progress, A PLACE FOR WHAT WE LOSE. She was also awarded an AMOCAT Community Engagement Award for her artistic and community work in 2022.

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Today’s poems/ Books / Oracle / Tarot Cards mentioned:

• Oracle Card: Earthed

• Poem: “A Litany First Revival” by Audrey Allard

Courses / Exclusive Content / Book Mentioned:

• Subscribe to “Adventures in Midlife” newsletter: leslieann.substack.com

• Tamiko Nimura Website: https://www.tamikonimura.net/