Posts by Julia Flynn Siler
How Novelist Kaui Hart Hemmings landed a role opposite George Clooney in “The Descendants”
The statistics are daunting: less than two percent of all the books optioned for the screen ever enter production. Far fewer make it into theaters. My first book, The House of Mondavi was optioned twice, but never came close to becoming a movie. That’s why it’s been a vicarious thrill to watch Kaui Hart Hemmings’…
Read MoreKava in South Kona
I caught a glimpse of the sign out of the corner of my eye: “Ma’s Nic Nats & Kava Stop.” I made a quick U-turn on the Mamalahao Highway in South Kona and headed back, pulling across from a laundromat where children chased each other outside as their parents waited for clothes to dry. From…
Read MoreImprov for Writers
I was at the bottom of a long wait list with faint hope of getting in. But just days before the start of a four-day improvisation workshop last month I got a call from BATS (Bay Area Theatre Sports) asking whether I’d like to join its intensive class led by the legendary teacher Keith Johnstone.…
Read MoreAn Afternoon with a U.S. Poet Laureate
As a long-time reporter, I’ve met a lot of people. Perhaps the most inspiring was our current U.S. Poet Laureate, William S. Merwin.
Read MoreRevisiting the Mondavis
A few years back, a friend asked me to donate a unique item to a fund-raiser for a local non-profit: to lead the winning auction bidders on a bike tour of Napa Valley, showing them favorite spots I’d discovered in my research for The House of Mondavi…
Read MoreSinging with the choir
So it was with delight and some trepidation that I accepted an invitation to sing along with the choir at a Sunday service, directed by “Auntie Nola.” I joined the soprano choristers, who wore formal mu’mu’u dresses in a pattern of green, black and white brightened with sprays of delicate orchid blossoms. It was an opportunity to sing the last queen of Hawai’i’s songs in her own church with people who’d grown up with her music. And the experience profoundly moving — joining together with these beautiful voices to perform the queen’s own songs. It touched me in a way that no amount of reading or writing ever could.
Read MorePaying Respect
“it was a little bit chicken skin for me as I went down into the vault,” said Honolulu’s acting mayor, Kirk W. Caldwell, after the ceremony at the Royal Mausoleum on the birthday of the last monarch of Hawai‘i, Queen Lili‘uokalani.
Read MoreMy Dinner with Amy
I knew I’d found a soul sister who also loved research when I clicked onto Amy Stillman’s blog and found her posting, “Adventures in Archives.” For the past three years, I’ve been making trips to the treasure trove of Hawaiian historical archives located in Honolulu. Amy Ku‘uleialoha Stillman, a Harvard-educated associate professor of music and…
Read MoreSearching for Kau Kau
I first came across the word “kaukau” in a note that the Hawaiian Princess Ka‘iulani wrote to Robert Louis Stevenson more than a century ago. The Scottish novelist and his family had arrived in Honolulu in the afternoon of January 24, 1889, and the beautiful princess dropped them a short note, inviting them to her family’s estate and adding that “Papa promises good Scotch kaukau….” Arnold Hiura’s new book, titled Kau Kau: Cuisine & Culture in the Hawaiian Islands, explains the origins of this word and a lot more.
Read MoreThe Queen’s Prayer
The last queen of Hawaii’s best known composition is Aloha Oe, which is heard in the soundtrack of everything from Elvis Presley’s “Blue Hawaii” to the Disney movie “Lilo and Stitch.” But the one that brought tears to my eyes this morning was “The Queen’s Prayer,” a hymn she wrote when she was imprisoned for eight months following a failed insurrection against the 1893 overthrow of the independent kingdom of Hawaii.
Read More