OF BOOKS AND WRITERS
'Shattered Love' details former TV star's search for self
By Wanda Adams
Advertiser Books Editor
O'ahu resident Richard Chamberlain's memoir, "Shattered Love," (ReganBooks, hardcover, $25.95) will be released Tuesday. The book details the former TV star's search for self with the aid of friends and spiritual teachers: "Strange to be famous for so long and not know who you are," he writes. "Mine has been a journey from learning to impersonate and please others, to learning who I really am. It's been a long peregrination — from fear to love."
Bess Press has released "Marshall Islands Legends and Stories," collected and edited by Daniel A. Kelin II (paper, $14.95; hardcover, $22.95), which includes 50 legends and stories recorded from storytellers throughout the Marshall Islands. It's an introduction to a culture that has sent us many new residents in recent years and has received new attention as a result of Honolulu writer Robert Barclay's well-regarded first novel, "Melal," set in the Marshalls. Kelin is director of drama education for Honolulu Theatre for Youth but spends summers working with young actors in the Marshall Islands. With the aid of a Rockefeller Foundation grant, he developed a play for HTY based on Marshallese tales. Nathan T. Nashon of Majuro in the Marshall Islands illustrated the book with drawings and tattoo designs.
The University of Hawai'i Press has announced the fall release of "Na Lei Makamae ("The Treasured Lei")," by lei-making master Marie A. McDonald from the Big Island and former Honolulu Botanical Gardens director Paul Weissich, with photos by Jean Cote and design by Momi Cazimero. Eighty-five lei flowers and plants are introduced and placed in a cultural context (uses, hidden meanings, pre-contact mythology). Kumu hula, writer and ethnologist Pua Kanahele wrote a group of poems especially for the book and more than 200 individuals and organizations helped bring it to fruition. Its focus is to reveal the significance of lei-making as an art form and to raise awareness of the need to conserve native flora. Go to www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/books/lei.html for a preview.
Stuart Coleman, whose self-published "Eddie Would Go: The Story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero" became a local best seller, has signed deals with St. Martin's Press to bring out the paperback edition of the book next January, and with Baker & Taylor to distribute the hardcover nationally beginning right away. Coleman, a Hawai'i teacher and writer, had tried for years to interest Mainland publishers in the book, but Aikau was seen as too obscure a figure, too local a hero. But after the first edition sold out in five months, and the book did so well here, he was finally able to get a foot in the door. He's signing books and talking story from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 7 at Waldenbooks in Kahala Mall.
Pidgin, creole experts to gather
The summer conference for the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics is meeting here for the first time Aug. 14 to 17 at the Imin International Conference Center at the East-West Center. Among the presentations will be a Creole Literature Day Aug. 16, which would be of interest to those interested in local-style pidgin, with talks, reading by authors from Bamboo Ridge Press, a panel on local pidgin literature and a discussion of creole literature around the globe. Information: www.hawaii.edu/spcl03 or call Yun Hee Ko at 956-6045.
A summer full of writing workshops
Best-selling author Lois-Ann Yamanaka has announced her Summer 2003 Writing Workshops for Children, carried out through Na'au, the center for learning and healing she founded this year with partner Melvin E. Spencer III. The array of courses includes fiction-writing, poetry, picture books and essay-writing for kids in kindergarten through 12th grade, to be taught in weeklong sessions in a small-group format. Tuition: $400. Information: 548-6228.
Hawaii Book Publishers Association's annual workshop, "How to Get Your Book Published in Hawaii," will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 21 on the University of Hawai'i-Manoa campus, including nuts-and-bolts information from local publishers and an author's panel, with ample time for questions and answers. Tuition: $75. Information: 956-7221.
Writer and teacher Elaine Masters and the Hawai'i chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators will present an introductory workshop, "Getting Started Writing for Children," 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Saturday in Kailua (registrants will be sent directions). Cost is $20 ($15 to Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators members). Masters will discuss formats, publishing, editors and money. Information: 926-0115 or e.masters@verizon.net. Send checks payable to SCBWI Hawaii to: 2355 Ala Wai Blvd., No. 502, Honolulu, HI 96815; include name, address and phone number.
