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@tellthestory.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 2:39 PM

1901, Alaska. Looking at photos he took of Bristol Bay, #FrankMatsura confronts his inability to be as good as his hero, Alfred Stieglitz. #WIPsnips #comparison

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Book launch: October 27!

@tellthestory.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 4:25 PM

1901, Alaska. #FrankMatsura tells his friend, the boss, that his evident social class alienates him from his fellow Japanese laborers. Later, Taku will try to organize a labor strike. #WIPsnips #wall #historicalfiction

Imperfect Likeness will be released October 27!

After the music ended, we refilled our glasses. He asked me how I liked living in the Jap bunkhouse. He pronounced the word “Yop.” I told him the truth, that it was noisy, cold at night, full of insects, and smelled bad. But it was fine for now. I could do it for one summer, I said.
“And your countrymen? What do they make of you?”
I told him that every time I opened my mouth, I placed a high stone wall around myself. “They mostly don’t care to know me,” I said.
He looked down and twisted the stem of his glass back and forth, causing the port to swirl. “I understand you have made at least one friend, that Taku fellow.”
Heard? Heard from whom? I wondered.
“Taku? He’s all right. He has the manners of a wild pig,” I said pointing my fingers from my cheeks like tusks and making a snorting sound, which made Mr. Andersen laugh. “But he’s honest. He tells you what he really thinks,” I continued. “He gets angry about what he thinks is right or wrong. E-e-e-verybody is wrong but him! But underneath it all, I think he cares about people. He wouldn’t like to hear me say it, but he might make a good Christian.”
Andersen did not smile at this. He set his port on the table and picked up his pipe. “You might want to put up that stone wall between him and you. Don’t get mixed up with that one. He’s going to cause trouble, that Taku, like de Arbeiderpartiet back home. They’re bad for business. That man is like a wolf, waiting for a moment when he can pounce. Mark my words, Matsura, someone is going to get hurt. That man is dangerous,” he said.

@tellthestory.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 3:16 PM

1901, arriving in Seattle. One of the mysteries: why did he call himself "Frank?" (His birth name was Sakae.) There's nothing more American than reinventing oneself and giving oneself a new name, but this is my fictional answer. #WIPsnips #contract #FrankMatsura

@tellthestory.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 3:29 PM

1904, a farm near Seattle. Maybe the American Dream does apply to Asian immigrants after all.

I was surprised to find this word in my book. Fort Dent is now a park near SeaTac Airport. #WIPsnips #dent #historicalfiction #FrankMatsura

Goro greeted me with a shout and a smile. He’d put on weight since the last time I’d seen him. It suited him. His farmhouse was large and was furnished with fine furniture and upholstered chairs. Goro was not wearing his coveralls now but a new flannel coat and expensive-looking leather boots.
“Yes,” said Goro, pouring out two cups of Nada otokozakè, which was expensive even when not imported over an ocean. “I have fourteen employees now. Strong Chinese men. Seasonal, of course. They do most of the plowing and harvesting. I still do most of the planting myself, you know, but now I can spend my energy finding larger buyers for my goods. I don’t even go to the market anymore. Now I sell everything I can produce to Fort Dent,” he said, pointing his thumb north. “They pay top dollar. Things have never been better.”

@tellthestory.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 1:29 PM

1902. #FrankMatsura slips on a wet floor in the kitchen of the Seattle hotel where he washes dishes. #WIPsnips #injury

Brief #8, about Okanogan, the town he settles in goes out to subscribers today, along with Part II of the prequel short story.

www.dansato.com

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 6:34 AM

1895. #FrankMatsura, a 21-year-old soldier, is ordered to execute bound Chinese prisoners. This is an event that will haunt him for the rest of his life. This is from the prequel short story I'm sending to subscribers. This is from Part II which goes out tomorrow. #WIPsnips #guard

www.dansato.com

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 4:47 PM

Around 1909: #FrankMatsura visits Goro, his old friend, and find that his fields have been burned and Goro is nowhere to be found. #WIPsnips #well #indiepublishing

In two days, Part II of my serialized prequel story goes out to subscribers. I can send Part I to you on request.

www.dansato.com

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 27, 2026, 2:19 PM

For the purpose of my narrative, I needed my #FrankMatsura to have a vision/hallucination of his dead father. So, to treat an injury from a bad fall, he takes laudanum, a tincture of opium. #WIPsnips #delay

So, sitting in my room at midnight with an ice bag and a bottle of wine left unfinished by guests, I felt a dreamy languor wash over me. My pain was still present, but it felt like it was very far away or happening to someone else. The laudanum had taken effect without delay. I felt sure I would be able to sleep. I already felt quite drowsy.
I looked at the painting of John Paul Jones in his blue and red uniform, but instead of the American’s jutting jaw and tricorne hat, I saw my father. At least I thought it was him. I wasn’t sure. The last time I saw him, I had been five.
Was I dreaming?

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 4:13 PM

1901. The superintendent at the Alaskan salmon cannery talks business to #FrankMatsura. It's kinda boring, but it sets up an important character element. #WIPsnips #observe

“I’m concerned about our production level,” he said.
“Are you not catching enough fish?”
“No, we’re catching enough. We’ll catch even more in the next few weeks when the king runs. We just aren’t canning fast enough. We need to ship 350,000 cans by the end of the season.”
I gave him an expression of shared concern.
“It’s not me,” he told me. “It’s the owners in San Francisco. They have no idea what we do here.”
“Have they been here to observe?”
“Not once. I told them that we need to invest in our own fleet, our own ships. We need to consolidate the different branches of production and distribution, like Rockefeller did with oil. But they think it’s cheaper to contract local fishermen, even though a dozen different fishing boats bring in a dozen different catches and negotiate different prices for their salmon.” He put his nose to the snifter and breathed in the brandy. “I’m at the mercy of the individual contractor.”

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 4:56 PM

Lots of nations and countries in this convo. In his youth, he recalls, #FrankMatsura was uncritical about Japan's colonial ambitions. #WIPsnips #nation

One month from launch date. www.dansato.com

Many of us believed that neighboring Korea was weak and would be occupied by someone, so why not Japan? It would be better if an Asian country ruled it, rather than Russia or Great Britain, both of which had interests in Korea. Europeans were carving up Asia like a roast pig. Some Asian nation had to rise to counter European power in the region and Japan was standing up to fill that role. China had its eye on Korea too. One student, Kusu, had read and become consumed by a Russian book, The Communist Manifesto. None of us had ever seen the book; it was always hidden and secure in his room. But he had learned many foreign words from it like proletariat and bourgeoisie, which he had insisted on teaching us.
“It isn’t complicated. Colonizing Korea is oppressive, no matter who does it,” Kusu said, gesturing like an orator. “If Japan wants to defend itself from European colonialism, it should support and strengthen Korea. If Asian nations banded together,” he argued, “they could collectively defend themselves and their sovereignty. If we colonized Korea, it wouldn’t be any more justifiable than the Europeans doing it, seizing a weaker country and exploiting its resources and labor for the benefit of its own wealthy class.”
A classmate pointed out that we, students at university, might be considered members of that wealthy class.

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 3:59 PM

I have "interfere" for meddle. It's 1901 and #FrankMatsura has asked local fishermen in Alaska if he can come along with them onto the bay so he can take photographs of the coastline. #WIPsnips #meddle

They agreed on the condition that I did not interfere with their work. When they were not pulling nets or dumping the flopping fish into the hold, they would stand over me and watch the operation of the camera. I explained to them how a camera worked.
The first thing that struck me about the coastline was how ugly the cannery looked from the water. I had been underdeck when I first arrived in Naknek, so I had never seen it from the bay. Looking now, I saw a huge steel-gray edifice that contrasted with the beauty of the wilderness that surrounded it. The docks were dark and dirty and the opening at the cannery platform was rimmed with brown rust, as was the iron boom that extended out over the water. The cannery itself was surrounded by squat wooden longhouses that housed the workers. From multiple tall chimneys rose thin streams of black coalsmoke. Beyond the cannery’s squalor were majestic mountains latticed with black basalt and white snow, with an ascendant green carpet of trees in the foreground. The cannery looked like an affront, a mistake, a human imposition on the sublimity of God’s handiwork. I decided to make no exposure of the cannery itself.

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 21, 2026, 3:44 PM

This is the reason so few #FrankMatsura photos from Seattle exist. The dining room image was inspired by Hopper's "Nighthawks." #WIPsnips #stream

Later this week, my subscribers will receive the first of a serialized prequel short story about a wartime trauma alluded to in my novel. www.dansato.com

I still had no access to a darkroom, so my head filled with images I wanted to record but could not photograph. There were the horse and cart parked outside the hotel, the horse’s head down at the trough, its breath huffing clouds in the cold air. There was the cold winter light of late afternoon streaming through the hotel window into the dining room, illuminating two solitary diners, sitting at separate tables, each alone, yet not ten feet from the other. And there were still the white, forbidding mountains that I’d seen on my first day in Seattle, the Cascades. They stood like a detachment of smug sentries prohibiting passage to the inner continent. I had asked my employer, Mr. Jansson—pronounced Yahnson—to allow me to use the basins in the laundry room after hours, but Mr. Jansson had refused. He didn’t want to be in the position of having to explain to the owner, whom I had never seen, why he had hazarded the health of his guests for the weird chemical experiments of his Oriental dishwasher.

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 19, 2026, 11:28 PM

Recording my audiobook also functioned as my final proofreading. Now that that's done, my #FrankMatsura novel is DONE done. I've uploaded the final, corrected ARC file and finished cover to BookFunnel. Next: production and pricing! Marketing continues. #indiepublishing

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 19, 2026, 3:39 PM

Before they were flat discs, records were wax cylinders. Here, #FrankMatsura is amazed, hearing one for the first time. (A cylinder is basically a tube, right?) #WIPsnips #tube

He sprung out of his armchair and went over to a mechanical device on a table. “Do you see this? I bought it for Mrs. Andersen last Christmas. It’s an Edison Home Phonograph.” He opened a cardboard cylindrical box and drew out a black cylinder. He handed me the box. It was printed with the words “Edison Gold-Moulded Records Echo All Over the World.” After installing the cylinder in the device, he turned a crank, and a waltz emerged from the gilded horn protruding from the top of the machine!
“Remarkable, isn’t it? It’s new.”
I marveled at the invention. I’d heard that such a device had been invented, but had never seen or heard one. Bright, metallic music filled the room. I could make out the sound of French horns and flutes. It was yet another twentieth century miracle, like typewriters, telephones, and incandescent lamps.

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 18, 2026, 4:05 PM

#FrankMatsura meets Goro, a kind farmer who will be his friend during a difficult time. #WIPsnips #payment

Today, my goal is to finish recording my audiobook.

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 17, 2026, 3:13 PM

#FrankMatsura arrives in Alaska and is dismayed at the chaos. #WIPsnips #effort

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 16, 2026, 3:35 PM

#FrankMatsura befriends the boss. #WIPsnips #call

Tomorrow morning, my subscribers will receive an essay explaining why Asians should be better represented in school curricula. www.dansato.com

The only person who might understand my frustration, I thought, was Mr. Andersen, or Alexander, as he had invited me to call him. While I valued the time I spent with the workers, I could not talk about art or ideas without further alienating myself from them. They would have looked at me with blank expressions, unable to understand what troubled me. Some would resent me for flaunting my education and assume that I viewed myself as superior to them, which I certainly did not. Alexander was not an artist and had not much understanding of the principles of composition or artistic appreciation. But he at least saw art as something of value and understood the desire to create something that did not previously exist. He aspired to create an “empire” that would bear his name. I think he hoped that his family in Norway would hear of his success and approve. It was not so different from wanting to create photographs that people would admire and compare with the works of Constable and Homer.
Talking with Alexander about culture and the promise of the new century was pleasant and nourishing. I do not think I was under any illusion about our relationship. I never forgot the fact that, although I was older than him, I was his underling. I served a valuable function in his organization, translating for Olsen, the foreman, and selling Cracker Jack in his store.

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 15, 2026, 3:24 PM

Jess and Salkov are at opposite poles, politically, but the 1911 frontier was a time and place when amity between such opposites was still imaginable. #WIPsnips #exterior #FrankMatsura #historicalfiction

www.dansato.com

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 14, 2026, 6:33 PM

Historical fact: #FrankMatsura was an orphan. #WIPsnips #month

@tellthestory.bsky.social Sep 11, 2026, 3:17 PM

My novel is partly about labor, so today's word showed up a few times. Here, there is a labor strike. #FrankMatsura takes the opportunity to help his fellow Japanese send photos and letters back home to their families. #WIPsnips #exhaust

I'm still working hard on recording an audiobook.

I took the opportunity to photograph some of the men with their proudest belongings. Tachibana posed with a bicycle I had not seen before and had never seen him ride. Some hoped the photographs could be used by their families to secure them picture brides. Others sent back photos to family, showing them in their best clothes, or the best they could borrow, with family photos and mementos behind them, to show that they were alive and thriving. I was using my camera to produce fictions, but fictions that served the subjects’ needs. Honest portraits would have showed the grinding labor, the exhaustion, and perhaps the saving grace, camaraderie among the workers. A few men who could not read or write dictated letters to me that they would to send to their families. The recipients were not literate either, but a priest could be found who would read the letters aloud. Every single one painted a reassuring picture of their life in Alaska. They were working hard, they said, and making money that they would send home at the end of the season. Send news from home, they said.