Keiko Honda

Dr. Keiko Honda is an epidemiologist, writer, and founder of the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Health from NYU and worked as a cancer epidemiologist at Columbia University. At age 40, she began using a wheelchair permanently—an experience that redirected her work toward social connection and community health. In Vancouver, she transformed her home into a cultural salon space for artists and intergenerational dialogue, work that earned her the City of Vancouver’s 2014 Remarkable Women Award and the King Charles III Coronation Medal in 2025. She teaches aesthetics of co-creation and arts-based problem-solving at SFU’s Continuing Studies. Her writing includes the memoirs Accidental Blooms (Caitlin Press, 2023) and Hidden Flowers (Heritage House, 2025), and the translation The Broken Up Home (Caitlin Press, 2025). She lives in Vancouver, where she paints in watercolour and continues her salon tradition. Born and raised in Japan, she brings a cross-cultural perspective to her work, bridging Japanese and Canadian literary traditions.