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Book group pick: Lost Kingdom is now out in paperback!
Mahalo nui loa – Hawaiian for thank you very much – to the dozens of book groups I’ve spoken with from around the country that have picked Lost Kingdom as their monthly or quarterly read. I’ve met some of these groups in person and have skyped with some and phoned in to others. It’s been…
Read MoreHau’oli Lānui from San Francisco….
My husband and I went to several holiday parties this year and perhaps the most heartfelt took place in early December, at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center in San Francisco. We were invited to the J-Town hui’s annual holiday show and potluck. The hui (Hawaiian for a club or association) was made up of…
Read MoreSo you want to start a writing group…
A hand popped up in the back of the room. “So where did you get your name?” asked a man last Sunday afternoon. Seated before him were four members of North 24th Writers, who’d gathered at Book Passage for a panel discussion on writing groups. The occasion was the monthly meeting of the Marin branch…
Read MoreCall Me Ishmael: Herman Melville and the San Francisco Opera
It is one of the most memorable first sentences of a novel ever written. With three simple words, it draws us into the story, lets us know who the narrator is, and hints at dramatic transformations to come. This opening line – Call me Ishmael – was written by Herman Melville in his epic about…
Read MoreSpoiled for choice…
There always seems to be one weekend in the fall when there’s just too much going on. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, this weekend boasts not only Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free music festival in Golden Gate Park founded by the late philanthropist and financier Warren Hellman, but also Fleet Week.…
Read MoreMeeting Hawaii’s Next Generation Authors? (…and How I Handle Criticism)
A young man sitting in the back row tentatively raised his hand. I was talking to a group of history students and their teachers at Kamehameha Schools last week about my book, Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure, published by Grove/Atlantic earlier this year. “How do you deal…
Read MoreMark Ho’omalu and a “Kingdom Denied”
“Get your papers!” cried the delivery boys and girls, carrying rolled up copies of a Hawaiian newspaper printed especially for that evening’s show. Wearing natty caps and suspenders, they ran through the aisles clutching copies of the “Star of the Pacific,” yelling, “Get your papers!” Thus began an extraordinary one-night performance of the musical “Kingdom…
Read More“The Wave” by Susan Casey
The ancient Polynesians felt profound respect for the power of the sea. Their custom was to carry ti leafs with them when they went on risky journeys. As Susan Casey reports in her masterful book, The Wave, California-born but Hawaii-bred surfing legend Laird Hamilton, perhaps superstitiously, always carries a ti leaf along with him as he…
Read MoreSusan Orlean on Stagecraft (and How Writing Can Be Like Stripping…)
I just spent the past few days at the 21st Annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference. I was on a panel with Andrew McCarthy, who made his name as an actor in “Pretty in Pink,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” and “Less Than Zero,” and is now an award-winning travel writer for National Geographic Traveler…
Read MoreHow an 1863 petition from Ni’ihau re-surfaced in San Francisco
The story begins in November of 1957. The chief photographer for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Warren Roll, climbed into the passenger seat of a small plane in Kauai. The pilot took off, heading towards a 73-square-mile privately-owned Hawaiian island of Niihau. The plane landed roughly, smashing its landing gear and splintering its propeller. Roll, carrying his…
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