Tomoko Mitani was born in 1945 and grew up in Hokkaido, Japan. Married with two daughters, she worked as an instructor for Kumon, and her translator Yukari F. Meldrum was one of her students. In addition to various business ventures, she began writing these short stories, which she self-published as a collection in 2002, called Wasurenai, warai mo namida mo. She lives in Sapporo, Japan.