Koji Steven Sakai

ksakai

Koji Steven Sakai has written four feature films that have been produced, Haunted Highway (2006), The People I’ve Slept With (2009), Monster & Me (2012), and #1 Serial Killer (2012). He also served as a producer on The People I’ve Slept With and #1 Serial Killer. His feature length screenplay, Romeo, Juliet & Rosaline, was optioned by Amazon Studios. Koji’s debut novel, Romeo & Juliet Vs. Zombies, was released by Luthando Coeur, the fantasy imprint of Zharmae Publishing Press in February of 2015.

Updated March 2015

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“Kuma,” A Short Story, Part 3 of 3

By Koji Steven Sakai
20 Mar 2015

Read Part 2 >> Eddy’s life changed right away. He stopped going to school and his family wasn’t allowed to leave the house at night. Eddy spent the first couple of days playing with Kuma and with Julia once she got back from school. Eddy noticed a lot of strangers were going in and out of his front door and how things around the house were slowly disappearing. He found his mom arguing with a man over a brand new vacuum cleaner his dad had bought her for their anniversary. “This is brand new and worth five times what you’re offering,” Mrs. Murakami told …

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“Kuma,” A Short Story, Part 2 of 3

By Koji Steven Sakai
19 Mar 2015

Read Part 1 >> Eddy was a Nisei, which means second generation Japanese. In other words, his parents were born in Japan, but he was born in America and was therefore a citizen. Because he had never visited his parent’s homeland and since he couldn’t speak a word of their native language, he always felt more American than Japanese. But when others saw Eddy, they saw the enemy. At school, the other kids wouldn’t let him play baseball during recess and the teachers stopped calling on him in class. They all blamed him for what Japan had done. It was the first time Eddy fe…

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“Kuma,” A Short Story, Part 1 of 3

By Koji Steven Sakai
18 Mar 2015

Eddy Murakami’s 10th birthday was on July 4, 1941 and he knew he wanted a dog. He even had a name picked out already. The dog’s name was going to be Kuma, which in Japanese means, “bear.” For the entire month of June, Eddy begged his dad to get him a dog. “Dad, can I have a dog?” Eddy would ask every time he saw him. And every time Mr. Murakami would say, “No.” But Eddy wasn’t the kind of boy that took no for an answer. So he kept asking. By the time his birthday finally came, Eddy hadn’t been able to change his dad’s mind…

culture en

Book Review: “How Much Do You Love Me?” by Paul Mark Tag

By Koji Steven Sakai
17 Feb 2015

How Much Do You Love Me? by Paul Mark Tag is the kind of novel I usually hate. Here’s the Amazon.com synopsis: It’s December 1941, and the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. Politicians fuel anti-Japanese hysteria and campaign to segregate Japanese Americans. During this period of hate and racial frenzy, Keiko and James, a Japanese American and a Caucasian, fall in love and marry. Before long, James goes off to war and Keiko to an internment camp. Sixty years later, Keiko has a stroke and lies near death, while James suffers from Alzheimer’s. Coincidentally, a chance …

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Koji's Column

A Response To Roger Lotchins’ “There Were No Concentration Camps In America” Article

By Koji Steven Sakai
9 Nov 2012

The first lesson I want to teach my son is that there are idiots in the world. Lots of them. And just because you teach a class in college or you have a degree does not mean you are not an idiot. Don’t get me wrong, this is not to say that ALL professors and people who have degrees are idiots but some of them are. Roger Lotchin, an alleged professor of history at the University of North Carolina, is one of them. In his opinion piece, “There were no concentration camps in America”, he seems to ignore history and perpetuate lies that have been refuted for more than 25 years…

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Japanese migrants and their descendants

Koji Steven Sakai

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