Writing

My mother was an inveterate letter-writer, so it’s no surprise that by the time I was six, she had me writing my own letters from our home in Kailua, O’ahu, to her mother in Fargo, North Dakota. By nine I was also writing stories to send to Jack and Jill Magazine. When they got rejected, I just tried again. I honed letter-writing on a pen pal in Glasgow, Mary Maitland, whose name I got from the Weekly Reader.

In an essay assigned in ninth grade at Kamehameha Schools I boldly stated my plan to become an artist or a journalist, which would require going to college. The next fall working on the student newspaper boosted my confidence so much that, when I was finishing my junior year I jockeyed myself a summer job for the daily Honolulu Star-Bulletin, where various reporters took me under their wings.  It was 1957 and I was 16. I gladly wrote simple obituaries and announcements – on a typewriter, in duplicate -- and took phone dictation from reporters in the field. I made $45 a week and saved it all in my college fund, less a nickel a day for coffee, which foul beverage my mentors insisted was a condition of our profession.

I chose the University of Minnesota School of Journalism over art school. I did learn stuff – some from J School but more from the liberal arts load that went with it. I learned the most useful things about journalism from my five summers with the Star-Bulletin, or as a feature writer and associate editor of the Ivory Tower, the University’s student weekly magazine.

In 1969 I became a feature writer for the Eugene Register-Guard. By 1972 the Women’s Movement was heating up. Had the managing editor not eliminated my job that year to get rid of at least one uppity woman, I would never have become a freelance journalist. As it was, I then spent some twenty years as a magazine freelance writer.

During those years, a quest for my Hawaiian cultural roots became more and more important to me. Freelance writing meant I could choose Hawaiian topics, and the projects gave me an “official” approach to cultural leaders and experts.

I didn’t think I’d ever “retire.” But in 2004 I suddenly knew I had just written my last published article, “The Long Walk Home,” about the ancient Hawaiian ritual of Makahiki and a young Hawaiian’s mission to recreate a 100-mile walk around the entire island of O’ahu.

The articles were over. I had ended on a high note. Immediately I plunged into other forms of writing--- poetry, short stories, personal essays, songs. My two children – one a lawyer and one an artist – also are writers. To this day we have a three-way critique system that is merciless regardless of who is the mother.

Now, in 2025, I still write letters, essays, poems, stories, sometimes even more songs. Write on, I say. Right on! As they said in the 1970s. Write on! How can I not?

I haven’t finished selecting writings to post here, but the rest of the website is ready for you – art, music, and photos and speeches from the Aka o Ke Ānuenue event in June 2025. In early 2026 I will winnow writing from some 300 published pieces and a sizable body of other stories, poems and essays. For now I hope you enjoy the rest of this website. Check later for writing.