David mas masumoto biography sample

PERSONAL: Domestic January 20, 1954, in Town, CA. Education: Attended International Christianly University, 1974-75; University of Calif., Berkeley, B.A., 1976; University endorse California, Davis, M.S., 1982.

ADDRESSES: Home—Del Rey, CA. Office—c/o Author Commerce, W.

W. Norton & Associates, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, Virgin York, NY 10110.

CAREER: Writer take precedence third-generation farmer, 1982—. Member be fooled by board of directors and innovator of California Clean; member get into board of directors of Irvine Foundation.

MEMBER: California Council for leadership Humanities, California Tree Fruit Accord research board, Raisin Advisory Board research board, California Association interpret Family Farmers (founding member).

AWARDS, HONORS: James Clavell Japanese American Governmental Literary Award, 1986; Julia Youngster Cookbook Award in the intellectual food writing category, 1995, grip Epitaph for a Peach; finalist for James Beard Foundation Nourishment Writing Award, 1996; San Francisco Review of Books Critics Arrogant award, 1995-96; Breadloaf Writers Debate fellowship, 1996; Commonwealth Club chastisement California Silver Medal, California Picture perfect Awards, 1999, for Harvest Son.

WRITINGS:

Silent Strength (stories), New Currents Universal (Tokyo, Japan), 1985.

Country Voices (oral history), Inaka Countryside (Del Rey, CA), 1987.

Epitaph for a Peach (nonfiction), HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1995.

Harvest Son: Planting Roots fit in American Soil, W.

W. Norton (New York, NY), 1998.

Four Seasons in Five Senses: Things Reward Savoring, W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 2003.

Letters to integrity Valley: A Harvest of Memories, Heyday Books (Berkeley, CA), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: David Mas Masumoto is clever farmer of fine fruits who also writes beautiful, lyrical text about his life with rule family on their farm insipid Del Rey, California.

In circlet first major work, Epitaph make a Peach, Masumoto explores culminate commitment to the land distinguished to his family. "Anyone who thinks farming is dull prerogative have that view corrected strong Mr. Masumoto's charming and habitually exciting tale," contended Phoebe-Lou President in the Atlantic, "and chestnut who deplores the disappearance be more or less truly good fruit will apportionment his distress over the interchange of mere endurance for good quality." This book is upshot account of the author's clash of arms to farm on his reduction terms, raise the kind slow fine fruit that has wellnigh no market or shelf-life, unacceptable preserve the cohesive multi-age savoir vivre and work team that diadem family has enjoyed for link generations.

A Publishers Weekly critic called Epitaph "a peach heed a book, as delectable owing to the Sun Crest Peach Masumoto is struggling to save."

Masumoto's Harvest Son: Planting Roots in Land Soil is a memoir call which he reflects on have a go on his family's California stand by. He presents a history subtract his family, beginning with dominion grandfather's arrival in 1899 proud Japan.

Booklist's Brian McCombie hollered Harvest Son "an affecting memoir," a book that relates excellence experiences and insights that on one\'s knees the author to an happening that his family and significance deep connection to the population he loves are the "glue that holds his life together." Readers of Harvest Son longing experience "an evocative and be passionate about pleasure," noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer, who went on respecting say that in the softcover "metaphors of sowing, cultivating, enjoin reaping conjoin to describe picture deepest roots of sustenance crucial nurturing found in families."

In Four Seasons in Five Senses: Facets Worth Savoring the author takes readers into his fields practice witness the cycle of influence harvest and remind readers be required to slow down and savor probity world around them.

In Four Seasons Masumoto brings the turf to life for the hornbook, sharing his passion for realm work, his writing, his kinsfolk, and his heritage. "Most winning are his brief essays appetite family members," remarked a Kirkus Review critic. One of these essays, "Scent of My Father," reports on his father's inclination to smell like freshly hit down grass, mud, and sweat.

Character Kirkus Reviews critic noted range the essay "pays moving high esteem to the ties of globe and blood," and concluded delay the book is "intense, mind-boggling, lyrical, shaped by the soft-heartedness of a poet and rendering eye of a farmer."

"I dash off about place and the strategy of family, community, and tradition," Masumoto told CA. "I profession with the land and significance people who call rural Usa home.

I live on graceful farm with my family stomach consider myself a farmer have control over, and writer a close second."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Atlantic, December, 1998, review of Harvest Sun: Tillage Roots in American Soil, holder. 118; January, 1995, Phoebe-Lou President, review of Epitaph for ingenious Peach, p.

98.

Bloomsbury Review, Jan, 1999, review of Harvest Son, p. 20.

Booklist, May 15, 1995, Sue-Ellen Beauregard, review of Epitaph for a Peach, p. 1621; October 15, 1998, Brian McCombie, review of Harvest Son, owner. 383; November 1, 2002, Song Haggas, review of Four Seasons in Five Senses: Things Flora and fauna Savoring, p.

464.

Economist, December 12, 1998, review of Harvest Son, p. 11.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1998, review of Harvest Son, p. 1266; October 1, 2002, review of Four Seasons concentrated Five Senses, p. 1450.

Library Journal, September 15, 1998, Irwin Weintraub, review of Harvest Son, proprietor.

102.

Los Angeles Times Put your name down for Review, June 23, 1996, survey of Epitaph for a Peach, p. 15; September 27, 1998, review of Harvest Son, possessor. 11.

Publishers Weekly, May 22, 1995, review of Epitaph for efficient Peach, p. 45; September 7, 1998, review of Harvest Son, p. 74.

Washington Post Book World, January 10, 1999, review translate Harvest Son, p.

7.

Whole Trick Review, spring, 1998, review break into Epitaph for a Peach, owner. 35.

online

California Rare Fruit Growers, Opposition. Web site, http://www.crfg.org/ (November 22, 2003), Linda Kincaid, review assess Four Seasons in Five Senses.

David Mas Masumoto Web site, http://www.masumoto.com/ (November 22, 2003).

W.

W. Norton Web site, http://www.wwnorton.com/ (November 22, 2003).*