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Reading time: 2 minutes

Lisa Linn Kanae, Kealoha, Juliet S. Kono, Mark Panek, Cathy Song

Talk story with a panel of nationally recognized Kauaʻi authors at Kauaʻi Community College, April 12, 5:30 p.m. at OCET 106CD (located next to the Bookstore). The Kauaʻi Literature Festival is a wonderful opportunity to hear from established Hawaiʻi writers.

Panel members

  • Lisa Linn Kanae, author of Sista Tongue, a memoir/essay that weaves the social history of Hawaiʻi Creole English with personal experience, and Islands Linked by Ocean a collection of short stories. Her work has also been published in Ōiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal, Hybolics, Tinfish, Hawaiʻi Pacific Review and Bamboo Ridge Publications. She currently teaches composition and literature at Kapiʻolani Community College.
  • Kealoha, the first poet laureate of Hawaiʻi. As an internationally acclaimed poet and storyteller, he has preformed throughout the world—from the White House to the ʻIolani Palace, from Brazil to Switzerland. He is the first poet in Kapiʻolani’s history to perform at a gubernatorial inauguration, and was selected as a master artist for a National Endowment for the Arts program.
  • Juliet S. Kono, a Leeward Community College professor, recently published her first novel, Anshu: Dark Sorrow. Based on historical events, Anshu is a tale of passion and human triumph in the face of extraordinary adversity, spanning the cane fields of Hawaiʻi and the devastation in Hiroshima. She is also the author of two books of poetry, Hilo Rains and Tsunami Years.
  • Mark Panek is the author of Big Happiness: The Life and Death of a Modern Hawaiian Warrior. It won the 2012 Hawaiʻi Book Publishers Association’s Ka Palapala Poʻokela Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. Big Happiness was a follow up to his first book, Gaijin Yokozuna: A Biography of Chad Rowan. His first novel, Hawaiʻi will be released in March. Panek teaches a variety of highly interactive writing courses at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.
  • Cathy Song’s books of poetry includes Picture Bride, winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, Frameless Windows, Squares of Light, School Figures, The Land of Bliss and Cloud Moving Hands. She is the recipient of many awards including the Frederich Bock Prize from Poetry, the Shelly Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Pushcart prize.

For more information, download the flyer or email James M. Lee.

—By Nicole Atienza

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