Author Statement
I am a Californian—the offspring of Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II, one of so many peoples to whom citizenship was denied and whose dignity was systematically stripped away. I am also descended from a Southern white family shaped by plantation life and its long shadow. I have spent more than half my life living and working in Europe, as an expatriate. All these histories meet in my body. They live in me. I write from a place of exile—of language and geography, of gender and citizenship, of belonging.
In my poetry and prose, I do not seek to provide answers. I begin from the assumption that exile is not rare. Every person I meet is potentially an exile. I listen for fractures, for margins, for voices forced into silence. In the act of writing, I have found a form of resistance: bearing witness to fragmentation and to the repositioning we are now living through. Writing gives me ground to stand on. At best, it allows something larger than me to emerge.
Memory
I carry my name as my responsibility. In the Japanese tradition, Shintani is a variant of Araya, which invokes the concept of ālaya-vijñāna—the storehouse consciousness. This eighth and most fundamental form of awareness, according to the Vijñānavāda school, gathers all impressions of lived experience, seeds future existence, and underlies all other states of mind.
As a writer, I dwell in this field of memory and continuity. My work is both a preservation and a transmutation of the impressions I have received. Whether in music, literature, or lived moments, I tend carefully to what has been stored. Sometimes fiercely, sometimes with silence.
I carry what was, in the great hope it might seed what is to become.
Born in Los Angeles 1953.
Master of Music in Conducting USC (Los Angeles) 1980; Kapellmeisterprüfung Musikhochschule Stuttgart 1983. Assistant to Dennis Russell Davies, Stuttgart Opera 1982-84; guest conducting, primarily new music 1982-1997; work with Pierre Boulez & ensemble intercontemporain, Paris 1989; Diplôme d’études approfondies in ‘Music and Musicology of the 20th Century’ IRCAM / EHESS (Paris) 1992. Founder of music ensemble Prisme, Paris.
Founder of Ensemble Neue Musik and teaching at Musikhochschule Stuttgart 1994-96. Work in music industry 1996-2004: A&R and IT at Universal Edition, Vienna; project manager for music downloads, publishing, and later finances at BMG, Munich. Numerous publications, broadcasts, lectures and translations.
Doctoral defense 12 April 2008 (summa cum laude) at Université Paris-Est, title: Gendertronics. Toward A ‘lecture féminine’ of Emerging Musical Technologies and Their Aesthetics – Gerhard Stäbler, Terre Thaemlitz, Miss Kittin. Docent, author, guest lecturer and translator of music texts 2005-2016. Docent for “Musikkonzepte nach 1945” [Music Concepts after 1945] at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Germany, 2005-2012, and Researcher at LISAA, Université Paris-Est, France, 2013-2019.
2000-2022 Resident of Stuttgart, Germany. Got married in 2005. Retired from teaching in 2012 and switched to writing full time. Did my best at a lot of stuff, published, won some tiny literary prizes, tried not to go buggy, and wished I had a dog.
2020 Covid. 2021 Husband left. 2022 I abandoned Stuttgart and my beloved, remodelled apartment. Moved to a senior residence on the shore of the magnificent Elbe River in Hamburg.
2023 Travelled the globe. Since then in Bavaria, doing time.
2024. Finally finished long novel, Paris Choice.
2026. Readings, still writing. Trying to get Legacy sorted.