Simon Rowe

I write short fiction and screenplays from a small room in an old house overlooking a samurai castle in the city of Himeji in western Japan. The Gods of Publishing have been kind: my stories and photos of have appeared in TIME Asia, the New York Times, the Australian, the South China Morning Post, the Paris Review and Lonely Planet Guidebooks. To keep this writing machine well oiled, I teach creative writing and media studies to English language learners at university level and when summer and winter holidays roll around, I tend to my Seaweed Salad Days blog, a commentary on life in a traditional Japanese neighborhood. You can read it here - http://www.mightytales.net/

Good Night Papa: Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere

Short Fiction, Travel

Good Night Papa: Short Stories from Japan and Elsewhere is fifteen tales for the time-poor; four of the stories are set in Japan, the others take place in countries around the world. Triumphing over adversity is a central theme: a fugitive disguised as a pilgrim discovers his fate rests in the hands of a novice Buddhist monk in Japan (The Pilgrim); a recovering alcoholic mail pilot crashes his plane in the Australian desert with a bottle of gin on board (The Finke River Mail); a snobbish widow must ask the help of local cannery workers to carry a grand piano uphill to her home in Fiji (Baby Grand) are some of the tales told.

Good Night Papa (the story) was adapted to screenplay and won the Asian Short Screenplay Contest (U.S., 2013). It was judged by Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and produced by JBF Entertainment as a short film in 2014. The Pilgrim, in screenplay form, reached the top eight in the HollyShorts Film Festival (2014) and the semifinals of the Scriptapalooza short screenplay contest in Hollywood, L.A (2016). The Hunting Party was shortlisted for the Big Issue Fiction Edition (Australia, 2015) and Baby Grand made the shortlist of the Overland Victoria University Prize (Australia, 2016). Tuna Steak appears in Flesh: A Southeast Asian Urban Anthology which was launched at the London Book Fair (2015), and the final story, a short screenplay called The Foonabiki Barbers, reached the semifinals of the HollyShorts Film Festival in Hollywood, L.A. (2015).​

Pearl City: Stories from Japan and Elsewhere

Short Stories

Pearl City: Stories from Japan and Elsewhere is short fiction for busy people who love to travel. Six of the stories are set in Japan, and the others in Hong Kong, East Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, France, Austria, the Philippines, and Cambodia. The stories, which carry themes of freedom, family, redemption, justice, courage, corruption, girl power, are tied together by a single message: triumph over adversity.
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