Eric Chock is a Hawaiian poet, scholar and editor. He served as a professor of English and humanities at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu, [1] and coordinated the state's "Poets in the Schools" program for more than twenty years. [2]
In 1978, he cofounded the literary journal Bamboo Ridge with Darrell H. Y. Lum to encourage the growth of a distinctly Hawaiian literary style. [3] Authors whose works appeared in Bamboo Ridge included Gary Pak, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Rodney Morales, Wing Tek Lum, and Cathy Song. Pak described the journal as "the primary literary force in Hawaii today", and it received the Hawaii Award for Literature in 1996 from the Hawaii Literary Arts Council. [4] The success and influence of the Bamboo Ridge group of writers, among whom Chock himself was included, was later examined in detail by literary critic Rob Wilson in his study Reimagining the American Pacific. [5]
Chock has also edited several anthologies featuring Hawaiian writers, as well as Small Kid Time Hawaii and Haku Mele o Hawaii, two collections of children's poetry. [2]
He received the Elliot Cades Award for Literature in 1996. [6]
Hawaiian literature has its origins in Polynesian mythology. It was originally preserved and expanded solely through oral traditions, as the ancient Hawaiians never developed a writing system. Written literature in the Hawaiian language and literary works in other languages by authors resident in Hawaii did not appear until the nineteenth century, when the arrival of American missionaries introduced the English language, the Latin alphabet, and Western notions of composition to the kingdom.
Honolulu is a city magazine covering Honolulu and the Hawaii region. It dates back to 1888 when it was called Paradise of the Pacific. It is the oldest magazine in the state of Hawaii and is the longest published magazine west of the Mississippi. Honolulu is a member of the City and Regional Magazine Association (CRMA).
Bamboo Ridge is a Hawaii-based literary journal and nonprofit press. It was founded in 1978 by Eric Chock and Darrell H.Y. Lum to publish works by and for the people of Hawaii. In the United States, Bamboo Ridge is one of the longest-running small presses, and is one of the oldest in Hawaii. It was named after a popular fishing spot on Oahu. It currently publishes two volumes a year: a literary journal of poetry and fiction featuring work by both emerging and established writers and a book by a single author or an anthology focused on a special theme. Both the journal and book are available singly or by subscription.
Lee A. Tonouchi is a Hawaii born writer and editor, who calls himself "Da Pidgin Guerilla" because of his strong advocacy of the Hawaiian Pidgin language.
Pam Chun is a writer and marketing consultant, most notable as the author of the book The Money Dragon.
John Chin Young 容澤泉 (1909–1997) was a painter who was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on March 26, 1909. He was the son of Chinese immigrants and began drawing at the age of eight, stimulated by Chinese calligraphy, which he learned in Chinese language school. Young had his first and only art lessons while a student at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu. Thereafter, his art was entirely self-taught. Young is best known for his Zen-like depictions of horses, paintings of children, and abstractions. Over the years, he acquired an important collection of ancient Asian art, which he donated to the Honolulu Museum of Art and the University of Hawaii at Manoa as the John Young Museum. John Chin Young died in 1997 at the age of 88. His daughter Debbie Young is also a painter residing in Hawaii.
Isami Doi was an American printmaker and painter.
Satoru Abe is a Japanese American sculptor and painter.
Fred H. Roster was an American sculptor known for his mixed media narrative sculptures. He was born in Palo Alto, California and grew up on a farm. Roster received an MA in ceramics from San José State University in 1968. He came to Hawaii in 1969 on his honeymoon and decided to stay. In 1970, he earned an MFA in sculpture from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He joined the faculty of the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1971, and retired as professor and chair of the sculpture program in 2016.
Susan Oki Mollway is a Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and the first Asian woman ever appointed to the federal bench.
Wing Tek Lum is an American poet. Together with a brother he also manages a family-owned real estate company, Lum Yip Kee, Ltd.
Yasutaro (Keiho) Soga was a Hawaiian Issei journalist, poet and activist. He was a community leader among Hawaii's Japanese residents, serving as chief editor of the Nippu Jiji, then the largest Japanese-language newspaper in Hawaii and the mainland United States, and organizing efforts to foster positive Japan-U.S. relations and address discriminatory legislation, labor rights and other issues facing Japanese Americans. An accomplished news writer and tanka poet before the war, during his time in camp Soga authored one of the earliest memoirs of the wartime detention of Japanese Americans, Tessaku Seikatsu or Life Behind Barbed Wire.
Nora Okja Keller is a Korean American author. Her 1997 breakthrough work of fiction, Comfort Woman, and her second book (2002), Fox Girl, focus on multigenerational trauma resulting from Korean women's experiences as sex slaves, euphemistically called comfort women, for Japanese and American troops during World War II.
Rodney Morales is an American fiction writer, editor, literary scholar, musician, and Professor in the Creative Writing Program of the Department of English at the University of Hawaii. In both his creative and critical writing, he is concerned with contemporary multi-ethnic Hawaii society, particularly social relations between its residents of Native Hawaiian, Japanese, Caucasian, and Puerto Rican descent; the 1970s "Hawaiian Renaissance" movement and the disappearance of its legendary cultural icon George Helm of Protect Kaho'olawe Ohana (PKO); and the postmodern juxtaposition of popular artistic forms with high literature. Shaped by genre fiction of the postwar period, his regional stories influenced that of Generation X/millennial authors such as Chris McKinney and Alexei Melnick, "urban Honolulu" novelists known for their gritty, realistic approaches to depicting crime, drugs, and lower-class life in the islands.
Gary Pak is a writer, editor and professor of English at University of Hawaii. Pak has been noted as one of the most important Asian Hawaiian writers.
Joseph Stanton is a Professor of Art History and American Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a widely published poet.
Mark Panek is a Hawaii novelist and scholar. A professor of English at the University of Hawaii, he is the author of two books on prominent Hawaiian-born sumo wrestlers Percy Kipapa and Akebono. His biography of Akebono, titled Gaijin Yokozuna, was called "the best sumo biography in English" by The Japan Times. Lo'ihi Press published his first novel, Hawai'i, a story of native rights, corruption, and a hotly contested race for Governor.
Eric Paul Shaffer is an American novelist and poet, who lives and works in Hawai'i. Currently an assistant professor of English at Honolulu Community College, he formerly taught at Maui Community College and the University of the Ryukyus on Okinawa. His work has appeared in more than 400 national and international reviews, journals, and magazines, including Bamboo Ridge, the Chaminade Literary Review, the Chicago Review, the Chiron Review, Slate, The Sun Magazine, and the North American Review, as well as in the anthologies 100 Poets Against the War, The EcoPoetry Anthology, Jack London Is Dead: Contemporary Euro-American Poetry of Hawai‘i , Crossing Lines, In the Trenches, Weatherings, and The Soul Unearthed. He is the author of five collections of poetry and one novel.
Ian MacMillan was a Hawaii-based scholar and novelist. From 1966 to 2008 he was a professor of English at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The author of eight novels and six short story collections, MacMillan founded the literary journal Hawaii Review in 1973. Beginning in 1992, he also served as the fiction editor for Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing. His work was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best of Triquarterly.
Darlaine Mahealani Dudoit was a Hawaiian poet, essayist and editor. Her work appeared in the literary journals Manoa, the Hawaii Review, and The Southwest Review, as well as the anthologies Sister Stew, Growing Up Local, and Against Extinction.