About
Michaela Vieser is an accomplished storyteller and award-winning author of eleven books, including the national bestseller Tea with Buddha. Michaela is working in the field of Nature Writer, finding her voice on a wide range of media, in creative non-fiction, but also radio and films. Her narrative work has appeared in print and on air on Deutschlandfunk Kultur, BBC, FAZ, Geo, NZZ, Financial Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, among others. She explores themes that seem familiar, but through her immersion become not and has gained a name as a „topic explorer“ by applying a method of extended research, combining information from the sensual with the scientific. Her books have been translated into Japanese, Korean, Czech, Polish and English, her TV series „Love Rituals with Charlotte Roche“ on ARTE is a bold attempt to show the universal message of Love (and was nominated for the Grimme Award as well as the Bavarian Film Price). She holds a degree in Japanese Studies and Japanese History of Art from SOAS London, UK and Tohoku University, Japan and has spent a year at a Japanese buddhist monastery, immersing herself in the Arts of sword fighting, calligraphy, tea ceremony and flower arrangement. Michaela is an alumni of the Royal Asiatic Society, the Bosch Foundation, Mombusho and the Michalski Foundation/ Switzerland and the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. As a Nature Writer she is active in initiating political and regenerative projects and literature.
Michaela lives with her three children in Berlin and the Oderbruch.
Awards & Nominations
2024 Winner: Best literary non-fiction book for Soundatlas. ITB
2023 Shortlisted: Best Knowledge Book Germany for Soundatlas. Spektrum der Wissenschaft
2022 and 2023 Fellowship: Wave Writer for the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea/ two-year grant to develop new narratives about our connections to the sea/
2021 Shortlisted: Best Knowledge Book Germany for “Weather - Between Dog Days and Twelve Nights”
2021 Winner: German Prize for Nature Writing Scholarship, Federal Environment Agency, Nantesbuch Foundation, Matthes and Seitz publishing house
2021 Scholarship: Initial Scholarship for Soundatlas, Akademie der Künste/ Berlin
2021 Working grant: Toshiba Foundation: A writer's trip to Japan in times of the pandemic
2020 Shortlisted: Bavarian Documentary Film Award for “Love Rituals” with Charlotte Roche, Arte documentary series, concept, screenplay and co-direction
2020 Shortlisted: Grimme Award for “Love Rituals” with Charlotte Roche, Arte documentary series, concept, screenplay and co-direction
2020 Winner: 2nd prize at Art&Tur documentary film festival for “Love Rituals” with Charlotte Roche, Arte documentary series, concept, screenplay and co-direction
2019: Nature Writer in Residency, Fondation Jan Michalski, Switzerland
2016: Cross-Border Scholarship for Belavodye, Altai, from the Bosch Foundation
2016 Winner: Book of the Year for “Forever and Now”, by Booksellers' Guild Germany
2015 Solo guest in Japanese Radio Talk Show with literary prize winner Genichiro Takahashi, Tokyo
2012 Nomination: Best Audiobook Ohrkanu for “Of coffeesmellers, whalebone-cutters and privy providers
2010 Spiegel Bestseller: Tea with Buddha - My life in a Japanese monastery
2005 Nomination: One of the “100 brightest minds under 30 in Germany” for the book title “Overlooked Sights” (together with Reto Wettach).
2000 Special Prize at the documentary film festival in Pärnü for screenplay of the documentary film “Tokyo Love Stories”, with Miriam Nielsen and Tim Hinman
1997 - 1999 Research Scholarship: Mombusho scholarship at Tohoku University Sendai, research scholarship/ focus on “The Art of Japanese Mountain Ascetics”, MA Japanese Art History