We are pleased to announce that the Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2020 will be open for submissions from Oct. 1 till Jan. 31 (arriving a couple of days late is usually OK). This year we have a new Officer, Yaeno Azuchi, and therefore a new address: 53-56 Izumigawa-cho, Shimogamo, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-0807, Japan. Much gratitude goes to her predecessor in Hyogo, Eiko Mori, for many years of bright, efficient service.
We also have two new Judges, both haiku poets: Akiko Takazawa & Sean O’Connor. Akiko, a disciple of Murio Suzuki (1919-2004), leads the Karinka 花林花 group and lectures on haiku at NHK Gakuen in Tokyo. She is also a fine translator of haiku, both Japanese into English and vice versa. Sean is the author of Even the Mountains – Five Years in a Japanese Village, amongst other memorable books, and has a good grasp of the Japanese view of haiku and haibun. He is also the founding editor of The Haibun Journal, published in his native Ireland.
We must thank the two judges stepping down, Toru Kiuchi and Hisashi Miyazaki, for all their hard work. The latter particularly has made a huge contribution to haibun exchange between Japan and the English-speaking world. His humorous and shrewd judges’ comments will be sorely missed. The most recent compilation of awarded works in the Contest (2015-17), Cottage of Visions, he recently translated into Japanese as イヌピアット語のレッスン Inupiat Lessons, and we are currently selling this book. It makes an excellent Christmas/New Year present for Japanese friends. If interested, leave a comment below (or at the earlier posting), and we can tell you how to order. The book is an attempt to showcase to the Japanese haiku world what ‘haibun’ has become abroad – something of which we can all be proud.
Complete Guidelines for entering the 2020 Contest, which is free, are given here. We look forward to receiving your haibun entries this autumn and early winter.
Icebox 
Reblogged this on Tournesol dans un Jardin.
Reblogged this on Sydney In Osaka and commented:
I am delighted to be a part of this wonderful Haiku in English group that Stephen Gill runs and teaches in Kansai. I attend the Senri-Chuo meetings in Osaka. Do enter a haibun today!
Terrific! I will submit something finally! And I learned how to reblog! So you are my first! Thank you, Stephen, for all your wonderful teachings and work! Arigato!
Don’t mention it. Great to have you back in the Senri class.