Dan Sato

@tellthestory

Author, former educator, YouTuber (mistersato411), current denizen of a Seattle suburb, but formerly of Honolulu and Brooklyn. He/him. Launching October 27: Imperfect Likeness: the Legend of Frank Matsura Drafting: Kotonk

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Dan Sato@tellthestory· 29d

With his new friend, an itinerant merchant named Sang, Frank visits a recluse in the hills. These lines follow immediately after my WIPsnip for today. #Sundaysnips #smoke #FrankMatsura

We rode in silence for about an hour, the horses laboring to pull Sang’s overladen wagon up the hill trail. As we rounded a promontory, I looked at the trail ahead of us. The track marks were shallow, a pair of lines where the turf was thin and patchy, not the deeper ruts of a well-traveled trail.
“Look,” said Sang. I saw a small cabin ahead, firewood stacked high along its front, the property around it encircled by a rusted wire fence. Nailed to a fence post was a two-word sign: “No trespas.” Five bearded goats stared at us from a pen. A thin ribbon of smoke rose from its chimney.
Sang rapped on the door, then called out. I stood behind him. Sang had told me not to bring my camera to the door. After at least a full minute, a faint sound came from the other side of the door, like the sound of a heavy interior door being closed.
“I got a gun!” The voice was frightened and high-pitched. A boy, perhaps.
“Is Sang.” There was no reply. “No be scare. I bring a friend.”
“Why? Who is it?”
“He my brodder,” said Sang, winking at me. “He help me carry.” I saw the need for the lie. Whoever was on the other side of the door was terrified.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· 29d

Talking to a new Chinese friend in America, Frank reflects on how he, a Japanese, had viewed Chinese in the past. #WIPsnips #divine #FrankMatsura #indiepublishing This novel launches October 27, 2026

As the jolting and bumping wagon moved up the trail, I told Mr. Sang what happened to Goro’s Chinese son-in-law.
Mr. Sang shook his head with sadness. “Zan1 hai6. (That’s true.) Nothing new. Happen alla time when I lived back there. Sumbitches think Chinese like rats. Like not even people,” he said in English. Sang confirmed the story that Ulysses had told me, that the Chinese had been run out of town some twenty years earlier. The governor himself had called out the army to stop the rioting. “But too late,” he said in Cantonese. “The boat went already. Two hundred people were made to go to China who didn’t want to go. Why would they want to go back?” then reverting to English: “Got no notting back there.” I again reflected on the way that I had viewed Chinese in the past. I had been no better than the white men in Alaska and Seattle. Perhaps my treatment here was divine justice.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 18

#FrankMatsura on his first morning in Seattle. For this scene, I drew upon my memory of moving to New York City when I was 25. The flea bite is foreshadowing the disappointment he will face. #WIPsnips #next To learn the truth about Frank, subscribe to my newsletter: dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 17

#FrankMatsura gets his first camera. #WIPsnips #acquire #indiepublishing Want to know the historical truth about Frank? dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

But it was when Reverend Kimura gave me my first camera that I found my path. I had told him about the photography exhibit I’d seen in Ginza and how I had admired Stieglitz’s work. I wanted to do that, I told him, not teach twelve-year-old girls about Napoleon and English grammar. Hearing this, the reverend went to a closet and came back with a pinhole camera that he had used himself, but, having acquired a newer one, no longer needed. The reverend was a man of God, but he was also a man of the new century. The camera was a gift, he had said. He taught me about darkrooms, applying collodion to a glass plate, all the chemical solutions required and the process of developing and printing. He showed me how removing the lens cap over the pinhole exposed the treated plate that held the image. One Christmas, he gave me a magazine that featured three photographs by Alfred Stieglitz. Making photographs was like magic, which meant the photographer was a magician!

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 16

#FrankMatsura is tormented by traumatic wartime memories. I wrote a prequel story detailing his trauma and will give it to subscribers to my Historical Dossier free in the fall. #WIPsnips #rush #indiepublishing dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

When the mind is idle, as a dishwasher’s is, the bulwark against memory weakens and fails. Things one would rather have forgotten rush through the breach.
I remembered the war.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 15

I posted this clip before, but I like it. The loneliness of the foreigner. #WIPsnips #coach #FrankMatsura

When I returned to my traveling party, the men were all sleeping by the glowing embers of the fire, the two women having retired to the coach. None of them had worried about my long absence or wondered where I had gone. I, a foreigner, had not mattered much to them. I had made no effort to befriend them, so I was a stranger to them. Had I fallen into a ravine and died, my loss would have been forgotten by these people the moment they stepped off the coach in Seattle, if not before.
Perhaps I was not, and never would be, considered one of them. I spoke their language, but did not look like them. In Conconully, they’d never learned to pronounce my name properly, and many still called me a Chinese. I was liked for my friendly, efficient service in the kitchen and laundry. I was a valued servant, still shoveling shit, as Shishido would say. But I was not a member of the community. Not really. This may have been the burakumin’s country, I thought, but I did not think it was mine.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 13

In Seattle, #FrankMatsura hears about a little nowhere-town called Conconully and has a little fun with the word. A since-rejected title of my novel was This Dark Blue Village. #WIPsnips #almost Subscribe to the Dossier. Brief #2 will be released on Thursday. dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 12

Later, Mr. Talbot's house mysteriously burns down. #Sundaysnips #drink Learn about the real #FrankMatsura by subscribing to my newsletter: dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 12

Broke and unable to find work in Seattle, Frank receives some unexpected kindness from Goro, a farmer. #WIPsnips #extra Want to know more about the real #FrankMatsura? Subscribe to the Historical Dossier: dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

At the fruit and vegetable market, I met some fellow Japanese. They were farmers, uneducated but welcoming. To my chagrin, most of them were as deferential as the men at the cannery. But one man, a frowning farmer named Goro, saw in me not a gentleman of privilege but a man in difficult circumstances and far from home. His ever-present frown didn’t suggest sadness or displeasure, merely a thoughtful concentration, as if he were focusing on a delicate task. Goro sometimes sent me away with a sack of potatoes or snap peas, refusing to accept payment, insisting they were bruised or “extra” and were going to be thrown away anyway.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 11

From my prequel story about a traumatic and formative event in #FrankMatsura 's past. He is a twenty-one-year-old second lieutenant in the First Sino-Japanese war. Subscribers (free) will receive the serialized story beginning Oct 1. #WIPsnips #attack #indiepublishing dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

The next day, we attacked Huangjinshan Fort, what the Japanese call Ōgonzan—both words meaning the same thing, “Golden Hill.” Its defenses fell in only two days. Most of their forces had retreated, abandoning the fort in the face of the more numerous and better armed Japanese army. They left behind only a single fifty-man detachment to cover their retreat with light artillery and rifle fire. That rearguard detachment was no match for us, but they fought bravely. I respected their courage; they had faced a much larger enemy force in a duty doomed to failure in order to protect their comrades’ retreat.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 10

#FrankMatsura tells his young Chinese-American friend that he's leaving Seattle. Want to know the historical truth about Frank? Please consider subscribing to the Frank Matsura Historical Dossier: dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

“Where are you going?”
“I want to see what’s out there,” I said, waving my arm in an easterly direction. “Maybe I’ll find a nice little village where people will treat me like a human being.”
“I hope you do.” He clapped me on the back and congratulated me. I told him that I planned to tell Mr. Jansson that I would be leaving his employment in two weeks, giving him time enough to find a replacement.
“Two weeks? Are you crazy?” he asked. “In two weeks, he’ll find some way to keep you from leaving. You should just blow town tomorrow morning. What time does the train leave?”
At 7:00, I said. I asked if I didn’t have a responsibility to my employer.
“You don’t mean dirt to Jansson and the owner doesn’t even know your name. And because you won’t be here for your last week’s pay, you’re giving him a week of free kitchen work. He has nothing to complain about. But I’ll miss you, old man.”
“I will miss you too, Ulysses,” I said.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 9

For anyone objecting to Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy in #TheOdysseymovie, this is a picture of Andromeda from the classic 1981 Clash of the Titans. Andromeda is the princess of Ethiopia. No one cried foul because Judi Bowker was clearly chosen for her classic Ethiopian beauty.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 9

1901. There's friction between college-educated #FrankMatsura and the other Japanese when he befriends the white boss at the salmon cannery. #WIPsnips #keep

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 8

In Ashland, OR, for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. They did a good job trying to put a feminist spin on the Kate/Petruchio plot in The Taming of the Shrew, but the Bianca plot couldn't be salvaged. It's just unfunny no matter how much clowning they heap on it. Some good performances, though.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 8

It's 1905 or thereabouts. No humidity per se, but a description of Seattle's constant wetness for two-thirds of the year. So, vibes. (And this, from someone who loves #Seattle.) #WIPsnips #humidity #FrankMatsura

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 7

#FrankMatsura is shocked to discover how remote and provincial his new frontier town, Conconully, is. To learn more about him, subscribe to my newsletter! dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

“Now, this place you’re from,” Mr. Dillabough began. “It’s called what?”
“Japan, sir. It’s an island nation off the coast of China.” Had they really never heard of Japan? Only the previous year, Japan had been recognized by European nations as an equal, as a peer, distinct from its weaker, neighboring countries. Since the Treaty of Kanagawa, Japan had become a player on the international stage. President Ulysses S. Grant himself had visited at the invitation of the Emperor a quarter of a century ago. But a frontier town like Conconully, I supposed, with its dirt roads and absence of telegraph lines was a world apart from such international affairs.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 6

This from the draft of my second WIP. It's 1977, Luke is fifteen and on his first date, the high school football game. Things look like they're going well. #WIPsnips #stadium #Honolulu

This from the draft of my second novel. It's 1977, Luke is fifteen and on his first date, the high school football game. #WIPsnips #stadium #Honolulu

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 5

The last photograph. #WIPsnips #bench #FrankMatsura Yesterday, I made a text-only cover for my ARCs and uploaded it to IngramSpark, so now, I'm waiting for an eproof. #indiepublishing

In the evenings, Noriko sat for the portrait I wanted to make. I wanted to reveal her soul, as she said I had done for others, so she could see herself as I saw her. I wanted to capture her bravery and beauty, her wisdom and kindness. I made several exposures. The one I liked best was one I knew I would destroy, a nude.
Noriko sat on a bench, a blanket draped in folds across her lap, her body turned at a three-quarter angle. Her right hand was in her lap on the blanket while the left was held up, her hand on her throat, her hand framing her chin. I’d seen this pose in painting once.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 4

From page one of Imperfect Likeness, about #FrankMatsura. I have a #round word by itself, but this snip is more appropriate for Independence Day, celebrated here in the land made up almost entirely of immigrants full of hope and dreams and with much to offer their new country. #WIPsnips

I looked around me. I had made it to America. Alaska was not a state but it had been American territory for over thirty years. My first goal had been achieved: get there. Next, get money and make some exposures worthy of the master.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 3

This is a second snip, this one from the thing I'm actually working on today. It's 1894 and my MC, a low-ranking officer, receives orders that he knows are illegal. #WIPsnips #out

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 3

Foreshadowing. 1901. The Norwegian cannery boss in Alaska discovers that because #FrankMatsura is educated and bilingual, he can translate for his foreman. #WIPsnips #out #Macbeth #indiepublishing dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jul 2

1903. Frank is talking to a Japanese mountain man in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. A kiseru is a long-stemmed pipe. You can guess what kintama is. My first newsletter went out today! If interested, you can subscribe here: dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b #WIPsnips #knock

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jun 29

These aren't my words; they are Frank Matsura's, written in a 1905 newspaper essay. If you want to know about the historical basis of my upcoming novel, Imperfect Likeness, subscribe to The Frank Matsura Historical Dossier. dan-sato.kit.com/1053f8236b First issue is Thursday. #WIPsnips #water

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jun 20

It's Juneteenth. Post your favorite Black fictional character. (the unnamed narrator of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.)

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jun 20

I just hired a illustrator/graphic designer from Spain to design my book cover! He's done work for Penguin Random House. I am hopeful and super-excited! He did this cover.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jun 3

Good morning, #WIPsnips community, As of today, June 3, my novel about Frank Matsura has been rejected or ghosted by fifty agents and two small presses. I’ve been querying since May 2025. I now begin the process of self-publishing with a planned launch date of October 27. #indiepublishing

Photo of Frank Matsura, a Japanese man, with a camera on a tripod.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jun 3

April in Paris, Thelonious Monk

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jun 3

I thought about giving a cooler answer, but if we're talking about whole albums, this is the truth.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jun 2

I asked AI to create an image of what Noriko looks like in this scene. The face belongs to actress Rinko Kikuchi. I don't use AI in my writing, ever. But images, both archival and AI, help me envision scenes.

Dan Sato@tellthestory· Jun 2

The woman #FrankMatsura jilted in Tokyo when he got a fatal diagnosis arrives unexpectedly in his little country town. Noriko is newly wealthy, and is only the second Japanese person any of them have ever met, after Frank. #WIPsnips #ready #writesky #writingcommunity #historicalfiction