Tamiko Nimura

RECENT NEWS AND UPCOMING EVENTS

June 2026: I am honored to be a finalist for Washington State’s Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award.

(For reviews, interviews, and coverage of A Place For What We Lose, see the book’s page here.)

2026 

7/26: Northwest Archivists Conference, lunchtime plenary speech (must be registered for the conference)

7/3-5: Tule Lake Pilgrimage, Klamath Falls, OR (plenary session for registered pilgrims, brief reading at Ross Ragland Theater as part of public cultural program)

7/12: Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma 7:30PM (guest reading and book signing) 

8/1: Tacoma Obon (find me signing books at the King’s Books table, or dancing!)

8/7: Puget Sound Book Festival, Bremerton, 12:00-4:00PM (find me signing at the King’s Books table!)

8/20: Edmonds Bookshop, 7PM  (reading and book signing)

 

Pacific Northwest Events: Part 1 Tour for A Place For What We Lose

4/5: Preview reading as part of the Nonfiction For No Reason series, Seattle 

4/28 (Publication Day!): Tacoma Launch at Write253, co-sponsored by Tacoma Public Library, books for sale with King’s Books. Conversation partner: Renee Simms.

4/30: Book reading and signing at Browsers Books, Olympia

5/5: Seattle Launch at Seattle Public Library (registration requested), co-sponsored by Densho, books for sale with mam’s books. Conversation partners: Caitlin Oiye Coon and Shawn Wong.

5/19: Portland Launch at Powell’s City of Books, co-sponsored by Japanese American Museum of Oregon. Conversation partner: Hanako Wakatsuki-Chong.

5/21: Tacoma Day of Remembrance, Washington State History Museum

6/6: Blaine Memorial UMC, Seattle, co-sponsored by Seattle Tsuru for Solidarity, books for sale with Madison Books. Conversation partner: Vince Schleitwiler. Registration free but requested.

 

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Author event with Anjali Enjeti and Simona Supekar, Third Place Books Lake Forest Park (3/11/26)

Author event with Naomi Hirahara, Kings Books (3/6/26)—UPDATED (not 3/7/26)

Featured speaker, Japanese American Day of Remembrance (Puyallup Valley JACL/Seattle JACL/Tsuru for Solidarity), (2/21/26)

 

2025

”Echoes of Our Floating World: Two Japanese American Sister Artists,”  With Teruko Nimura, Tacoma Art Museum (11/13/25)

”The Plant and the Plaintiff: Two Windows into Japanese American Wartime Incarceration” (University of Colorado Boulder/hybrid, free, 10/14/25) 

“Past Forward” podcast featured guest, air date 10/2/25

Kiwanis Club Auburn, WA. “Writing Family, Writing Resistance” (10/2/25)

One Bellevue, One Book. “Writing Family, Writing Resistance.” King County Bellevue Public Library (8/2/25)

Featured speaker, “The Tule Lake Concentration Camp: Reflections And Lessons,” Episcopal Diocese of Northern California. (Free registration.)

City of Tacoma Historic Preservation Awards, Outstanding Achievement In Leadership in Historic Preservation (Awards ceremony 5/22/25)

Tacoma Day of Remembrance, Washington State History Museum/Downtown on the Go (5/15/25)

Artist Trust Fellowship recipient! Washington State (4/8/25). Full 2025 announcement here, individual awardee page here.

Featured reader for The Gate of Memory launch, Elliott Bay Books, Seattle (4/25). I have a poem included in this Nikkei descendant anthology.

Featured speaker, Day of Remembrance with Tsuru for Solidarity and La Resistencia, Tacoma, Washington (2/25). Speech published here.

2024

Featured subject in the Sansei Granddaughters Journey exhibit, “Illuminating Strength.”

2022

“ArtTown Tacoma: Tamiko Nimura” (profile)

Selected Press for We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

Tacoma News Tribune (5/8/21), “Tacoma author’s family history shapes graphic novel on resistance to WWII internment”

Newspaper

2020, “Tacoma Arts Month looks to connect people feeling isolated because of COVID-19 pandemic,” 10/12/20

Television

2022, “Japanese Exclusion,” Northwest Now, KBTC (air date 2/18/22)

2020, “Community Engagement Artists,” Cityline Tacoma (air date 10/30/20)

2020, “KBTC Profiles: Remembering Tacoma’s Nihonmachi,” KBTC Tacoma, air date 9/1/20 

Podcast Interviews

2022,  “Tamiko Nimura waxes rhapsodic,” We Art Tacoma podcast

2020, “Lift as You Climb,” Paw’d Defiance podcast 

2020 “Tamiko Nimura, Writer and Biographer of Senator Rosa Franklin,” We Art Tacoma podcast