David Mura

David Mura is a creative nonfiction writer, novelist, poet, critic, playwright and actor. His presentations in the fields of diversity, multiculturalism and leadership reflect both depth and meaning and the eloquence and dynamic energy of a writer and performance artist. A third generation Japanese American, Mura authored Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei, which won a 1991 Josephine Miles Book Award and was listed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His second memoir is Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity. Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire, his novel about the effects of the Japanese American internment in World War II, will appear in September 2008.

Mura performs with African American writer Alexs Pate in Secret Colors, a multi-media performance they co-created about their lives as men of color and Asian American-African American relations. After premiering at the Walker Art Center, it has been presented at various venues throughout the country. PBS included a film adaptation of this piece, titled Slowly This, in its 1995 Alive TV Series. Mura was also featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS series The Language of Life.

Mura is the author of three award winning books of poetry, After We Lost Our Way, The Colors of Desire, and Angels for the Burning. His poems have appeared in such journals as The New Republic, The American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New England Review, and Crazyhorse. He has written essays on race and multiculturalism for publications including The New York Times, Mother Jones, The Utne Reader, Racism Explained to My Daughter, and The Graywood Annual V: Multi-Cultural Literacy.

Some of Mura’s awards include a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers Award, a US/Japan Creative Artist Fellowship, two Bush Foundation Fellowships and a McKnight Advancement Grant for playwrighting from the Playwrights’ Center.