Eve Kushner, Freelance Writer

Eve Kushner is a writer in Berkeley, California. She has published two books, as well as 315 articles in 35 markets. (Writers are like baseball fans with their love of statistics!) To learn about her background, see About Eve.

Current Focus: Joy o' Kanji

Now Eve is focusing exclusively on kanji as part of her exciting new project, Joy o' Kanji. Because Joy o' Kanji is all-consuming, Eve is not accepting any new freelance work.

With Joy o' Kanji, she intends to write an essay about each of the 2,136 Joyo kanji, the characters needed for daily use in Japan. This is obviously a lifelong project! These essays, which are downloadable in PDF format, give readers a full understanding of each character as nothing ever has. They also feature photos of kanji that bring the characters to life. For a small fee, you can download these essays from Joy o' Kanji. For an even lower fee, you can view photo albums of kanji in real-life contexts. The captions explain everything you'll want to know. There's also plenty of free material, all lending order to the often chaotic world of kanji.

What's New

January 2012

Joy o' Kanji finally launched in December, and it's going full throttle now! What a thrill to see this vision come to life after so long! Be sure to check out the site and have a good look around. There's a lot to see and enjoy. You can also friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Here's the latest at Joy o' Kanji:

Jan. 27: I posted two new essays, one on 屈 (to bend), one on 浦 (seaside). I also posted a JOK Notebook entry called "Drops of Rain, Drops of the Moon."

Jan. 24: I posted JOKIA Album 69 and the JOK Notebook entry "Velveteen Books."

Jan. 20: I posted two new essays, one on 塚 (mound), one on 怒 (anger). I also posted a JOK Notebook entry called "Everything Is Illuminated—Sometimes" about the despair and "aha" moments that come with studying Japanese.

Jan. 16: I posted a JOK Notebook entry, "Caged Camels and Other Mysteries."

Jan. 13: I posted two new essays, one on 斤 (loaf (of bread)), one on 沢 (marsh, plentiful). I also posted a JOK Notebook entry with more dragon images.

Jan. 10: I posted a JOK Notebook entry, "A Rabbit Crossed with a Horse."

Jan. 6: I posted two new essays, one on dragons (竜), one on turtles (亀). In honor of the Year of the Dragon, I also posted a JOK Notebook entry, "Dragons Abound!", with a quiz about dragons and a lovely dragon image.

In March, officemate Gail Shea and I launched Quilts4Japan.org to help the survivors of the multiple disasters in Japan. In all, we collected and sent 520 quilts, many with personal messages translated into Japanese. Patchwork Tsushin has just relayed many messages from survivors who received our quilts! With the help of Hideo Suzuki I translated them and posted them on our Facebook page.

Eve's Books

Her first book, Experiencing Abortion: A Weaving of Women's Words, came out in 1997 from Harrington Park Press (which Taylor and Francis has since acquired) and is also available on Amazon. Ten years later, Experiencing Abortion received a mention in Newsweek!

Eve's Articles

Eve has written many types of articles, including profiles, features, book reviews, personal essays, and how-to articles. She has most enjoyed writing about the following interests:

Sample Articles on This Site

"The Way of Kanji" The East Bay Monthly published Eve's essay on kanji as her path to serenity. You can download this essay as a PDF.

"The Greater Goods: East Bay Companies Live by the Triple Bottom Line: Profits, the Planet and People" This feature story about an inspiring new sector of the economy ran in the East Bay Monthly. Don't miss the five profiles posted on their own pages. (See the red links on the right-hand side of the main page.) The business world was uncharted territory for Eve, but the article fit with her longtime interest in profiling people with passions, visions, and missions. Susan H. Mac Cormac's InSight magazine article "The Emergence of New Corporate Forms" references "The Greater Goods."

"Building Blocks: Coordinating Contractors and Other Disasters" This two-parter ran on the cover of the San Francisco Chronicle's "Home & Garden" section in November 2003. It has attracted more attention than perhaps anything else Eve has written. Don't miss Part Two, which is posted on its own page.

"Life Ahead of the Curve" A profile of visionary architect Dan Liebermann, whose houses abound with curves and salvaged materials. This ran on the cover of the San Francisco Chronicle's "Home & Garden" section in July 2003. Don't miss the accompanying sidebar about a colony Liebermann has built.

"Artist Loves Chanciness" A profile of papermaker Linda Lemon, who lets randomness control her artistic process. This ran inside the San Francisco Chronicle's regional section in May 2002.

"Go Forth and Multiply: Abortion in Hollywood Movies of the '90s" This article originally appeared in Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture and was reprinted in the online magazine Bright Lights Film Journal. That's where the article link will take you. The article has also been reprinted in ProQuest Information and Learning, an educational database. In spring 2006, the article was recommended as side reading in a Rutgers University course, "Current Moral and Social Issues." In summer 2007, the article was quoted extensively in a piece by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. After a Newsweek editor saw the article, she interviewed Eve and quoted her in a December 2007 article about the movie Juno. Finally, the article played a prominent role in a January 2010 article on Gender Across Borders.

"Beagleman" This has to do with Eve's dog, her husband, and a man they met every night for years. The piece appeared in the East Bay Monthly.