Shigeko Ito with Ronit Plank — 'The Pond Beyond the Forest'

Third Place Books welcomes author Shigeko Ito to our Ravenna store for a conversation about her new book, — a memoir of a middle-aged Japanese immigrant mother’s struggle to raise her teenage son and save her marriage when she finds herself triggered by memories of her own childhood trauma as he enters adolescence. Shigeko will be joined in conversation by memoirist Ronit Plank.

This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

This event is free to attend. Registration is recommended in advance.

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For fans of Stephanie Foo’s What My Bones Know, a memoir of a middle-aged Japanese immigrant mother’s struggle to raise her teenage son and save her marriage when she finds herself triggered by memories of her own childhood trauma as he enters adolescence.

At age twenty-two, Shigeko Ito immigrated to America to escape Japan’s rigid society and a neglectful childhood home that landed her in a mental hospital at seventeen. She thrived in her new, healthier environment and thought her traumatic past was all behind her.

Until it wasn’t.Motherhood, she realized, was far more challenging than she could have ever imagined. But it was her son’s high school years that proved to be particularly daunting, and that was when her past reemerged—in the form of intense flashbacks to her childhood trauma and tumultuous teenage years. With the stream of daily stresses compounded by menopausal irritability, Shigeko often found herself regressing into a bunker-like mentality with childish coping mechanisms, a pattern that threatened to undo her most prized achievement: her happy family.

In The Pond Beyond the Forest, Shigeko faces her past head-on, taking the reader along on her quest to uncover the root causes of her lifelong struggles—a journey that leads to deeper self-awareness, understanding, and acceptance, and ultimately saves her family and marriage.

Shigeko Ito grew up in Japan and immigrated to the United States in her twenties to pursue higher education. She studied early childhood development and education, earning a PhD in Education from Stanford University. Drawing on cross-cultural experiences and academic expertise, she explores themes of trauma, resilience, and healing, with a particular focus on childhood emotional neglect. Her writing has appeared on the Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) Foundation blog and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) website. She worked for many years at a Montessori preschool and is an avid animal lover, especially of dogs, who enjoys birding, gardening, and raising mason bees. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband of thirty years.

Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Kirkus Reviews calls her debut memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". About the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation, WHEN SHE COMES BACK earned Finalist in the Housatonic Awards and was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book of 2021. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. Ronit teaches memoir writing for the University of Washington’s Continuum Program and other writing programs based in the U.S. and abroad, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and hosts the podcast Let’s Talk Memoir featuring interviews with memoirists about their creative process and writing life. Find her at ronitplank.com, on Substack at Let’s Talk Memoir, and across social media @RonitPlank.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Third Place Books Ravenna, 6504 20th Avenue Northeast, Seattle, United States