Clara Kumagai is from Ireland, Japan, and Canada. Catfish Rolling, her debut novel, was a 2024 YOTO Carnegie Medal nominee, and winner of the 2024 KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year. Her second novel, Songs for Ghosts, came out in 2025. She lives and writes in Ireland. 

For her residency, Clara has organized the public series Where the Waves Take Us: Art, Identity, and the Sea, a multidisciplinary exploration of creativity and the ocean, and of the relationship between humans and the natural world. This series explores the ocean as a world unto itself, as well as a site for human journeys, and how traversing them links to themes of identity, (im)migration, and human connections to our environment. UBC’s coastal location and the ocean's fluctuations due to climate change heightens the relevance of engaging with the sea and our connection to water in thoughtful and insightful ways. The series’ guests include writers, a singer-songwriter, and a playwright, with a body of work that engages with nature and communities through the lens of both past and present. 

Clara Kumagai is in residence at Green College for three months, beginning in September 2025. Learn more about her work on her website.