Although The Plaza Plus carried a cover price and could be purchased on the newsstand, it was developed primarily as a PR Zasshi, a public relations organ for a large conglomerate that dealt in travel tours and English language schools. It was thus distributed as a benefit to regular customers of those services. These consisted primarily of Japanese girls between 16 and 20 years of age. The stories could be used as instructional devices by the schools and to whet students' appetite for travel with the faint exoticism of an English-language lead story about New York.

The corporate benefactors envisioned sparkly accounts of sophisticated shoppes and gala soirees. I just didn't have that in me. Instead my subject matter included a succession of serial killers, addicts, idylls about playing in graveyards, my obsessive love of lobster, and so on. Subjects I felt closer to.

The editors at Words, Inc., Mr. Katakura and Ms. Sato, were exceedingly supportive of my work. In addition to introducing me to other editors in Tokyo, they constantly defended my stories to the corporate sponsors. In all those months only one story (which I will post here at a later date), about a final trip on a beloved motorcycle, was rejected outright as being "not about New York, not about anything but what's inside [his] head."

I regret having burdened the kind, thoughtful folks at Words, and I will always be grateful to them. If you read the Plaza Plus stories understanding that they are written, as best I knew how, for young girls unused to reading much other than school- and comic books, they'll have a curious flavor that's more interesting than any other virtue these tortured texts may possess. If I were a better writer I would have fulfilled the editorial mandate, but I'm certain that these stories would then be of no interest here at all.

Benefitting these pieces additionally: M. Yoshida's translations are, as always, masterful.

- DGI