I remember the moment I fell in love with her writing. It was September 2008. The Eden Mills Writers Festival. Trudging around the mud puddles that had gathered along the roadsides of the beautiful village of Eden Mills, I stopped when I heard a woman’s voice. That woman was reading excerpts from her recently published graphic novel “Skim”. It was funny, endearing, and seemed to perfectly capture that ambience that was my teenage years during the 90s.
Since then I’ve slowly but surely hunted down Tamaki’s other work from the novella “Cover Me” to her creative non-fiction “True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice” and “Fake ID” and to my personal favourite, her second graphic novel, “Emiko Superstar”. It’s been absolutely wonderful to read writing that is not only laugh-out-loud funny, but to be able to watch the growth of one of Toronto’s rising stars.
All I can say is that if you haven’t checked her out yet…you need to. And, if you want a free and easy way to do it all you need to do is come to the HEAR/HEAR Reading Series at the Free Times Café (320 College St) this WEDNESDAY August 19th at 6 p.m. Mariko will be reading as part of a line-up of great Toronto writers including Andrew Daley, Colin Frizzell and Rebecca Rosenblum.
