Apr. 15, 2019
Writer Kristiana Kahakauwila to Speak at CWU on April 23
Acclaimed fiction writer Kristiana Kahakauwila will visit Central Washington University on April 23 for a public reading and craft talk.
Kahakauwila, author of This is Paradise: Stories, which was named a 2013 Barnes & Noble Discover Great Writers selection, will conduct a craft talk from 12 noon to 1 p.m., followed by a public reading of her works at 6 p.m. Both events will be in the Brooks Library Second Floor Commons.
Her stories include realistic, suspenseful tales depicting domestic and intercultural turbulence in Hawaii. Critics have described them as “vividly imagined,” “gritty,” “glowing with life,” and “a real tour of Hawaii.”
Currently an associate professor of creative writing at Western Washington University, Kahakauwila is a hapa writer of kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian), German, and Norwegian descent. She also teaches in the Low Residency MFA at the Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) in Santa Fe.
Kahakauwila is currently at work on an historical novel set on the island of Maui and has published excerpts and essays in Kartika Review, Red Ink, Mistake House, and GEO Magazine, among others. She earned a BA in comparative literature at Princeton University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan.
Her appearance, part of the annual Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series, is sponsored by the CWU College of Arts and Humanities, the CWU Department of English, the Brooks Library, the Multimodal Education Center, Karen Gookin, the CWU Wildcat Shop, and CWU Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies.
For more information, contact Lisa Norris, Department of English, 509-963-1745, Lisa.Norris@cwu.edu.