[Literature Market Osaka] Selling new essay collection 'Hello! I'm the Black Grass Next Door'

In my first year after quitting my job as a company employee and becoming a freelance writer, I was contacted via my blog by a young woman, and we met at a certain place in Tokyo.

"As a new graduate, you should work at your first company for at least three years. People who quit in a short period of time cannot expect to find subsequent employment."

In those days when such pressure was strong, she was a first-year graduate who had apparently quit her company after six months due to poor mental health. While she was looking at Twitter and feeling pessimistic about her own future, she happened to come across my blog, written by 'the woman who was fired from her first job out of college after just two months in this day and age.'
　

Fired from my first company after two months, quit my second company after two months due to a mental breakdown, and worked at my third company, which I joined the following month, for a year and a half while pushing myself to the limit of my stomach's endurance. After successfully performing a brilliant triple axel of quitting three companies (one of which I was fired from) in my first two years after graduation, I announced my retirement from being a company employee and switched to being a freelance writer. These are the days of my desperate struggle as a rookie writer, working side jobs at a hostess club to earn living expenses and gain experience in failure!
　

That was the woman who said to me, after reading my blog where I shamelessly wrote about my complex, fractured career, 'This might be rude, but even though your work history has been a mess since you started working, reading about how you're living positively despite everything made me feel like I might still be okay.'

The first half is truly rude without a single cloud of doubt, but I was genuinely happy that my dark history had come full circle and led to some dim hope for someone somewhere, and I felt a sense of being saved myself...
　

　
When I told this story at a drinking party, a senior writer said this.

　
'Masaki-san, that's it, you're the black grass next door.'

New essay collection 'Hello! I'm the Black Grass Next Door'

　
So, I borrowed my senior's words entirely and created an essay ZINE with the theme of 'Black Grass Next Door.'

If 'the grass is greener on the other side' describes the state where other people's things look excessively good and you feel relatively inferior, 'the black grass next door' is the exact opposite: a state where you can think you're still okay when faced with someone else who is in a worse situation.

I took a liking to the fact that the girl who quit her company six months after graduation felt a 'black grass' kind of hope in me, who was fired six months after graduation, and with the thought that 'I hope this book becomes a dim hope for someone somewhere who reads it,' I compiled my 'black grass' style failure episodes, including work, romance, friendships, and even trivial daily blunders.

　
I myself am the type who has a very strong habit of comparing myself to others. If I were the kind of person who could at least use the greener grass next door as fuel to work hard, that would have been fine, but unfortunately, I am a mentally fragile Colonel Muska whose eyes 'Balse' just by looking at the green grass. I am a small person who maintained my peace of mind by muting every writer account of my generation on social media that posted brilliant achievements like articles going viral, being mentioned by celebrities, surpassing tens of thousands of followers, appearing at events, or publishing books. My heart's capacity is only about 75 square feet.

Conversely, every time I see a celebrity guest who should have achieved brilliant success on the TV show 'Shikujiri Sensei: Don't Be Like Me!!' openly revealing their unknown failures, intense experiences of frustration, and the miserable feelings they have tasted, I have received gloomy courage, thinking, 'This person has also messed up a lot...!!'

If you think of this 'black grass' as a two-hundredth-brewed failure content inspired by such 'Shikujiri Sensei,' you will understand it quickly.
　　

I will be exhibiting at the 'Bungaku Flea Osaka' held on 9/8

I plan to sell this new essay collection at Bungaku Flea Osaka.

The booth name is 'It's Masaki.' I registered it as a placeholder when I entered, thinking I'd change it later, but I forgot, and this is what happened. This kind of behavior is consistent with the episode 'NO MORE Tax Delinquency' in the new essay collection. Also, although the booth name implies I'm exhibiting completely alone, Yokohama-san will be with me just like last time.

Along with the new essay collection, I will also be selling the three essay books I created previously.

A collection of work essays about the 10 years starting from being fired as a new graduate 'Where Does Your Career Start? Mine Starts from Being Fired' I have summarized the preview and the feedback I received in the following article, so please take a look if you'd like. It was particularly well-received by people of the same generation, those lost in their careers, and the unemployed, and about 100 copies have successfully found their way to readers.

A 30s moratorium exchange diary by two classmates born in the first year of Heisei, Yokohama and Masaki 'Life Has Become Comfortable But Still Doesn't Go As Planned'

An essay collection by Miyuki Yokohama, also known as Yokohama, looking back on memories of each of the 12 months along with the 24 solar terms 'Days Living with Memories of the Calendar'

I have written the details of these thoroughly in the promotional article I wrote for the previous Bungaku Flea Kyoto, so I would be happy if you could read it.

I would be very happy if many people could come to the venue, visit the booth, and purchase the essays. I look forward to seeing you at Bungaku Flea Osaka◎

Masaki