Akemi grew up in the Bay Area, went to college at Brown University, and lived in the UK and New Haven for a few years before eventually returning home. She studied geochemistry in school but started writing when a friend challenged her to write a page a week as a means to navigate a quarter-life crisis. A page (rather slowly) turned into a novel and she has been writing ever since. Akemi now splits her time between the Bay Area and the UK and when she isn’t writing she enjoys over-researching her travel plans, cooking without ever completely following the recipe, hiking but not too strenuously, and many other basic activities including brunch.