Emi Watan­abe Cohen wrote her first nov­el when she was 12 years old — the most com­plete draft she can find clocks in at 234,780 words. That’s over 1,000 pages! Thank­ful­ly, her edit­ing skills have improved since then. Her more recent work involves Jew­ish and/​or Japan­ese folk­lore, com­pli­cat­ed fam­i­lies, and a dash of improb­a­ble mag­ic. She is a grad­u­ate of Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty, where she stud­ied Cre­ative Writ­ing. The Lost Ryū is her debut novel.