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As the tires of the airplane hit the runway of Narita airport, I closed my eyes and gripped the armchair. The whole flight, I was preparing myself for this, the jolting moment the plane meets the ground, an abrupt signal that you have finally made it to where you are going. I am no stranger to solo traveling, on admittedly more minor scales, leaving home for college twice. But I was always traveling to get away from one thing or another, a memory or feeling. And I guess in a similar way, I found myself traveling overseas for the first time just to look for one thing or the other, alone, and only after landing does the fact that I may not know the language as much as I told myself start to sink in.

Spanish author Marta Sanz engages audiences in the DMV through readings, panels, and workshops during her 2025 Cheuse Center residency. Spanish writer and literary critic Marta Sanz will participate in a series of literary events in the DMV area during her 2025 residency at the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center at George Mason University, in collaboration with the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C. Sanz will be in the U.S. from September 26 to October 3, beginning in Washington, DC, before continuing to New York City.

"When Eloise tells Kofi she wants a divorce, he sits naked on the kitchen floor skinning an ox tongue to prepare Eloise’s favorite dish." So begins Brian Gyamfi's poem, 'The Almost Love Poem of Eloise and Kofi'.

The barn could be neither more plain nor less imposing.        Little cared for, seeming underappreciated. Unpainted wood. Board-and-batten sides, roof of tin. Long and narrow, yet, in the whole length of it, only six windows, arranged in two blocks of three each, high up on one wall. Not much light gets in except through the holes and cracks in the walls.        There probably was not much light to come through those windows anyway in the middle of the night or even in the early morning that time in 1955 when 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured and murdered in that barn near Drew, Mississippi. But it had to be tough for a lone Black youth facing a squad of White men, in the dark, those men seeming intent on life-ending torture. 

In another life, my grandmother would have been a hairstylist. My mother told me the story once as she grew up hearing it, and it felt like legend, embedded itself in my consciousness like a bit of grit in an oyster.      I guess I’ve always mythologized my mother and her mother. Their lives as women in Japan in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s seemed to follow a Joseph Campbell-esque hero cycle with one or two major deviations, and over the years in the mantle of my brain their stories grew, nacre covered and shining.        My grandmother grew up on a tea farm in the mountains of Japan’s green tea capital, Shizuoka-ken. She was the second youngest of eight surviving siblings: six sisters, two brothers, and two “water children”, or stillbirths. The oldest brother would of course inherit the tea farm, and each of the sisters left the nest in turn to make their own way in the world. Women in those days didn’t want to be a “burden” on their families my mother says, and she uses the word again when she describes why she left home at eighteen. 

Each year, the George Mason University Alumni Association celebrates the achievements of alumni at the annual Celebration of Distinction awards program. The Alumni Association recognizes alumni for their outstanding professional achievements and service to the university, and honors the achievements of alumni from each school, college, and affinity chapter.

Today’s guests are Leeya Mehta and Bill Miller, both of whom I admire as friends, artists, teachers, and occasional collaborators. Bill directed the creative writing program at George Mason University for more than two dozen years, and helped establish the Alan Cheuse Center. Leeya is the current Director of the Center, and is also a prize-winning poet, fiction writer and essayist. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Cheuse Center, and we talk about how this beloved institution went from idea to thriving cultural force.

“When my friends in the U.S. worry about my visits to my homeland, I remind them that our lives are filled with danger, too. We may not call it ‘war,’ but the sense of vulnerability, fragility, and proximity to catastrophe is not dissimilar.” - Oksana Maksymchuk In this beautiful and thought-provoking essay, Cheuse Center Scholar Oksana Maksymchuk challenges how we think about danger, resilience, and what it really means to feel secure—drawing powerful comparisons between life in Ukraine and everyday America.

On May 15, 2025, the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center will return to the Arts Club of Washington to mark the ninth anniversary of the Cheuse Travel Fellowship, a program that has launched powerful literary works rooted in global research. The evening will feature readings by George Mason University MFA graduates whose Cheuse-funded international travel inspired their now-published and incoming books.