May 11, 2025

Tribute to Eugene Woodbury: Stories to Tell & Stories to Translate

As mentioned in the previous tribute post, Eugene wrote Tokyo South shortly after his return from his mission. A story connected to Tokyo South won an award; other stories were published in print magazines. Two novels, Path of Dreams and Angel Falling Softly, were published and positively reviewed.

Over ten years ago, Eugene started Peaks Island Press. Through Peaks Island Press, he published Serpent of Time and Fox & Wolf. Although Fox & Wolf was somewhat more popular (shapeshifters!), he considered Serpent of Time, with its time traveling and historical background, to be the better book. During these years, he also published works by two of his sisters.

He never ceased translating works from Japanese to English. Under various pseudonyms, he translated light novels for various publishers. In the last six years, he began publishing translations of Ranpo Edogawa's Boy Detectives Club books, starting with The Space Alien.

Most of his translations, however, he did for free. He disliked the pressure of publishing deadlines and preferred to work--and rework--his translations however many times he wished. 

His greatest translation project was Fuyumi Ono's Twelve Kingdoms. He discusses how he got started on translations, including that specific project, here: 

The downloads for the Twelve Kingdom translations will remain available indefinitely. The Edogawa translations will hopefully be made available, for free, on this blog at a later date.   

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posted by Katherine Woodbury [5:00 AM]   2 comments   

April 11, 2025

Tribute to Eugene Woodbury: Man on a Mission

Eugene kept himself updated
on changes to Tokyo South.

Eugene spent time in Japan as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. His mission, during the late 70's, was Tokyo South, which area he often wrote about on his blog. He later wrote about his missionary experience in a semi-autobiographical novel, Tokyo South. That novel will be republished at a later date through this blog. Currently, the opening chapter is available. 

After his mission ended, Eugene majored in TESL at Brigham Young University. He continued to improve his understanding of Japanese--he was never without vocabulary cards, the 3-1/2" by 1-3/4" types. 

A decade later, in the late 1980s, he returned to Japan to teach English. 

He didn't stay. However, back in the U.S., he continued to watch Japanese television and anime, read novels and manga, and stay abreast of current events. As the next tribute post will discuss, he never stopped producing translations. 

Eugene's remarkable facility with translation was due, in large part, to his belief that translation is not a matter for Google Translate (as the image from Bones humorously illustrates). Rather, translation involves a grasp of culture and nuance. A translator hopes to capture the allusions, conscious and unconscious references/assumptions, within a text. 

Eugene was a perfectionist (one reason he preferred to translate for free); he was never entirely sure he had captured the full meaning of a passage or phrase or even word. 

Language has layers. As an aficionado of everything Japanese, Eugene strove to capture those layers. Interview with the Translator captures Eugene's continual efforts to deepen and expand his knowledge of Japanese history, culture, language, and--especially--popular works.

A tribute post to Eugene's writing, including his translations, will follow in May. 


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posted by Katherine Woodbury [5:00 AM]   3 comments   

March 12, 2025

Tribute to Eugene Woodbury: The Tinkering Gene

Family memories regarding Eugene Woodbury's teen years coalesce around his hands-on projects. Growing up, he was a tinkerer with televisions and go-karts. He wrote about TV Wars on this blog: his ongoing hunt for tubes to fit into televisions of the 1950s - 1970s. 

He also constructed go-karts. The Bill Cosby routine below almost perfectly captures those experiences, despite our family living in the suburbs, not the city. A similar freedom infused our childhood from oldest to youngest, despite the gap in years (15) between the oldest Woodbury child (Ann) and youngest (Kate). Eugene is the third oldest sibling. 

Our mother's rule was "you have to be able to hear me if I call." Otherwise, we were free to roam our suburban neighborhood, which in the early years was filled with kids ready and willing to play games and dare the laws of physics. Eugene spent a great deal of time outside or in the garage, building stuff.   

It is fitting that, like our father, he owned one of the earliest home computers, back in the days when a computer could do little more than act like a typewriter and cost three times as much as a current Smartphone.

Posts on Eugene's time in Japan and Eugene's writing will follow in April and May. 

Feel free to comment on this post about Gene making stuff!  

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posted by Katherine Woodbury [8:00 AM]   2 comments