After shortlisting for the Bath Children’s Novel Award in 2022, former barrister William Yamaguchi Dobson accepted representation with Lucy Irving at Darley Anderson and signed book deals with Audible and Scholastic. He shares his path to publication and the moving story behind Kamizen: Fortress of Lost Memories, his enchanting fantasy adventure for 9-12s which publishes in paperback in April 2026.
Congratulations on the publication of Kamizen: Fortress of Lost Memories! Your literary agent is Lucy Irvine, who you signed with soon after shortlisting for the Bath Children’s Novel Award. How did you know she was the agent for you, and what’s it been like working together since?
On a Sunday afternoon Lucy read the chapter book which was shortlisted for the Bath Children’s Novel Award 2022 and that evening she emailed asking to meet. We met over Zoom the next morning and by the end of the call she offered representation. Other agents were considering my full manuscript so I asked for thinking time, but I knew then I was going to accept. She articulated her thoughts for my book passionately and clearly, but more importantly, it was her promise to invest in my long-term career that persuaded me she was the right agent.
I was a barrister with a trial-heavy workload rather than a paper-based practice so I’d developed a keen instinct for knowing when a witness is hoodwinking you; my cross-examination of Lucy during that call reassured me she was bona fide.
When you sign with an agent, you don’t have personal experience of their editorial craft and style at a granular level. I’m happy to report Lucy is an editorial polymath, by which I mean she covers every angle of storytelling with the precision of a diamond cutter.
Being out on submission coincided with your father reaching end stage dementia and, over the course of a difficult summer, travelling to and from your father’s hospital, the seed of an idea took root. You began writing the story of a boy who is given the chance to enter his grandfather’s lost memories so he can help him finish his memoirs before it’s too late. It must have been a deeply personal and emotional book to write…
My father’s dementia worsened over time, but there were periods where it plateaued. Nothing prepares you for the cliff-edge drop in cognition when end stage dementia arrives. That summer is something of a blur; I was functioning on autopilot, somehow adjusting to the turbulence without being blown down. The abiding memory I have is of reading to my father at his bedside – two of his favourite authors: Alistair Cooke and Alan Bennett. When understanding is in short supply, we find solace in books.
While writing some scenes I admit tears flowed, both happy and sad, but I think personal stories make for richer encounters.
This book became Kamizen: Fortress of Lost Memories. What do you hope children feel or think about after finishing it?
Although Jonty lives in contemporary times, there’s scarcely any mention of smartphones in my book. It’s a story about lost memories and how we remember those who struggle to remember us. I’d like children to know that it’s through the passing down of stories, orally or in written form, that we remember memories – not through technology and reliance on cloud storage. For children and their families with experience of dementia, I hope my book helps them talk about the changes and challenges, and treasure the moments they’ve all had.
Set mostly in a fantastical Japan, Kamizen blends whimsical yōkai lore with an enchanting journey and poignant family drama. Did you have a favourite yōkai tale as a child?
There was an iconic TV anime called Nippon Mukashi Banashi (“Tales of Long Ago”) that ran throughout the breadth of my childhood in Japan. Each episode was broken into two or three short animations steeped in folklore, with a dose of moralizing and didacticism. I am sure they have influenced my story consciousness, even if I can’t recall specifics now. My favourite yokai as a child was the tengu – a mountain goblin believed to have taught the way of the sword to high-ranking samurai – because there was a giant statue of one in Togura, Nagano prefecture, where my cousins lived.
Kamizen stars several primates and Gramps himself is a retired primatologist. Tell us about your own interest in primatology…
The snow monkey is native to the Japanese archipelago and in Nagano prefecture there is a park known as Hell Valley where they bathe in the hot springs. We used to visit with family and also made trips to a local zoo. There, when I was five, I angered a chimp. It responded by pelting something unmentionable at us, leaving a deep impression on me and a stain on my father’s new cream-coloured Burberry jacket which bore the brunt of the attack.
Forty years later, going through my father’s clothes I found the jacket and in a Proustian madeleine moment, it occurred to me that many of my favourite childhood stories and video games – from Donkey Kong to The Twits through to the manga series, Dragon Ball – featured non-human primates.
Monkeys populated my BCNA-shortlisted title, so for Kamizen I chose another primate staring at me from my bookshelf: The Bonobo and the Atheist by Frans de Waal…
Audible acquired Kamizen as part of their “Originals” series of audiobooks and spent seven months producing the recording with a cast of 17 actors including Timothy Spall as Gramps. You must be thrilled with the result?
It was a labour of love by all involved. Nathan Freeman of Granny Eats Wolf (best company name ever!) shares my dual heritage and so does Hanako Footman who directed the production, so I was in not only very capable hands professionally, there was a deep cultural understanding at the helm too. Audible treated my story with care and dedication, and I shall be forever thankful to them.
I will never forget when I first heard Timothy Spall in a sample they sent. I was walking along Tottenham Court Road and he sounded so much like my father I burst into tears. Tomoya Errington, who plays Jonty the protagonist, is in every scene and I am delighted we found a British-Japanese actor to play the role and he absolutely smashed it. He’s a name to watch out for.
Tell us about the stunning score and soundscape…
I played the audiobook recently in the car so that my son could listen to it for the first time (very special parent moment!). When the opening score comes on and the narrator announces my name it never fails to stir the emotions.
The score was composed by Emily Tran, who was still studying at the Royal Academy of Music when commissioned, and it’s pure bliss – there’s an ethereal quality to it which harmonizes with the story perfectly. I was at the recording studio for the score and was treated to the koto, shamisen and saxophone. I learned there is a difference between the Japanese and Western pentatonic scale structures, which I believe required some innovative thinking by the sound team.
Audible went all out on the sound effects, even hiring Tokyo-based soundscape artist, Nick Luscombe, to record a beatboxing Buddhist priest to perform the yokai-summoning chant I had written (yes, you read that correctly, a beatboxing priest!)
As well as the gorgeous cover design, Kamizen contains breathtaking artwork by Japanese artist Sawa – did you have any involvement in that side?
Typically, the author isn’t involved much in the artwork and illustrations. Sawa lives in Japan and I had no direct dealings with her, but my brilliant cover designer, Jamie Gregory, acted as a go-between. I possibly had more involvement than is normal, because of the language difference and need to represent certain artefacts or scenes accurately: a gate in the West means one thing but looks very different in Japan. I prepared a document with hyperlinks to things I had used for inspiration when writing the book, e.g. the wadokei watch and the Gate of Memory. I was sent roughs of proposed illustrations and gave comments where appropriate. Overall, though, I took the view that illustrations are outside of my expertise and trusted my team at Scholastic to know what children would be enthralled by. The end result exceeded my expectations.
You’re an alumnus of the London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme – how did that experience shape your writing and journey?
The London Library has transformed the depth of my writing. It has seventeen miles of shelving, so for someone who loves research, it’s a windowless paradise. Most of my plot ideas blossom while browsing books ancient and modern. I prioritise primary sources over online research – there’ll be a nugget in a footnote you won’t find through Google.
The programme was excellent and Claire who runs it is a national treasure: a champion of emerging writers.
It’s also given me a physical space to think and write. I completed my longhand edits at the library and my first panel event for Kamizen was in the Reading Room where, if my imagination serves me correctly, both Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf once sat smoking pipes on the Chesterfield, though not together and the chair has since been reupholstered.
What does your drafting and editing process look like?
For months I think and think and think – writing in my head, jotting bullet point notes and snatches of dialogue, overheard and imagined. I live with my characters, name them, give them quirks and attitudes; I plan an overview, then a chapter-by-chapter outline. I don’t follow the three-act structure or hero’s journey or any particular craft rules. I have one guiding principle: make it fun. Somewhere along the way, I will write a chapter or two to find the voice for the story, after which it’s back to planning and more thinking.
Then, like a boy standing on an embankment with his kite, when the right gust blows I release my story on the page. I edit while I write and after receiving my editor’s notes, I print out my manuscript and work longhand.
What did you learn about your writing while editing with first Lucy, and then your editor at Scholastic?
With Lucy the focus was on tuning the manuscript to make it commercially attractive – part of that required cutting 15,000 words and layering the action with more emotive elements.
With Polly Lyall Grant, my editor at Scholastic, I confess I had some trepidation while waiting for her notes – you start to second-guess yourself, and fear the publisher might have loved your book at acquisition but now they want your yokai-infested story inspired by rural Japanese landscapes to take place in outer space with cute capybaras instead. Thankfully that didn’t happen. Everything Polly suggested improved my book. We had fun and an open line of communication, so much so that I even pitched a book idea to her in a marginal comment in Word, which was a first for her!
Since shortlisting you have read for several of our awards. What have you learned by seeing entries as a contest reader rather than an entrant?
The quality of entries is staggering, and the variety! It’s a privilege reading them. The entries that have stood out for me have either had an easy-to-state hook or the writer draws you in with the first few lines, not Hollywood-style, but with a quieter storytelling technique.
In Kamizen‘s acknowledgements you mention that entering our award was ‘a last throw of the dice’ and that without that shortlisting, your book would never have been written. Can you say a little about why the listing meant so much to you?
I was overjoyed to receive a Golden Yes for the longlisting, then to receive your email about the shortlisting … it was a very happy moment after many rejections. The BCNA is a prestigious contest, respected by the industry, known to launch entrants on their path to becoming published authors – I dared to wonder that maybe, just maybe, my moment had arrived. It’s a true badge of merit and I wear it with fondness and pride.
What are you working on at the moment?
A martial arts fantasy for middle grade and something madcap for a younger audience.
Lastly, do you have any advice for writers thinking of entering 2026’s award?
Be brave, put doubt aside and ask someone to read your entry first.
Interview by Caroline Ambrose
Kamizen: Fortress of Lost Memories by William Yamaguchi Dobson
A stunning fantasy world where Japanese folklore comes to life
Out now at: Amazon | Bookshop.org* | Waterstones
Enter a secret wonderland in the sky where Japanese legends come to life.
Twelve-year-old Jonty desperately wants an adventure but he knows it’s unlikely when he’s stuck at home for the entire summer. But then he meets a talking bonobo in the forest at the back of his house who invites him to enter a magical world behind a Japanese Memory gate. There, he will get to collect wild memories from the time his gramps was a famous primatologist … and soon, his adventure begins.
Behind the gate lies a world far more enchanting than back home. In a world filled with mischievous Japanese beings called yōkai, Jonty must battle to collect the memories in a series of hair-raising trials. But there is an evil sky pirate crew on board a ship who are hellbent on destroying the memories for good … and they have bows and arrows.
Can Jonty battle the pirate crew before time runs out and the wadokei watch-clock strikes?
William Yamaguchi Dobson was born in Japan, where he developed a love of stories through manga and spent school holidays on his grandparents’ apple farm nestled in the alpine valleys of Nagano prefecture. Before turning his hand to writing, he worked as a barrister, is an alumnus of The London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme and was shortlisted for the Bath Children’s Novel Award. His debut MG novel, Kamizen: The Fortress of Lost Memories, has been released as a full-cast Audible Original and is published by Scholastic.
Follow William at: Instagram | Threads
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