"The UH vs UNLV pre-game show had already begun when Sheldon discovered that his television remote needed two new AAA batteries."

That glorious tension-packed opening line blasts off one of the stories in Lisa Linn Kanae's new book "Islands Linked by Ocean."

A line like that is more than a hook, it's a shop vac sucking you in. Kanae's stories are that way, life boiled down to those crucial moments, unique to her characters but familiar to all. You absolutely know the office ladies in "Luciano and the Breakroom Divas" and wish you could have been with them the night they went to watch opera.

"I gazed out at da audience. Even if dey was all strangers, I felt da sorrow in their faces — beautiful sorrow — as they watched Pavarotti sing about da stars dat da prisoner saw from his jail cell. No wonder so many people love dis kind music. ... Dat suckin' Pavarotti — he get um."

"Most of these stories took years to feel right," Kanae said in an e-mail. "I teach, and students need energy and time, so I write when I can. And besides, when a story is ready to be worked on, that's when I work on it."

Kanae teaches composition and literature at Kapi'olani Community College. Her prose and poetry have been published in 'Oiwi, Hybolics, Tinfish and Hawaii Pacific Review. This is her first book of short stories, published by Bamboo Ridge Press.

The book begins with a story called "The Steersman" about a prescient paddling coach, Cyril Poepoe, a guy so colorful and specific you're pretty sure you know him.

" 'Numba one,' Cyril shouted. 'wassup wit dat baton action? Dis not da Hawaii Drill Team.' Was da wind, I had wanted to yell, da wind! But I knew better. I just nodded. 'You miss couple strokes, you throw everybody off. You tink every race going be like sprinting up da Ala Wai canal? You going race Kailua. Waimanalo. Going get wind.' "

"Cyril Poepoe is a combination of paddlers I have met since I started paddling about 3 years ago," Kanae said. "The inspiration for the story comes from my first year with the club when David (Napoleon) kept us out on the water one evening after we lost sunlight. There was some low-level grumbling from a few paddlers but mainly out of fear for our safety. This, of course, did not faze David. He steered us toward Diamond Head. That's when the full moon appeared. That's when I realized that David had given us a rare gift. The irony, of course, is that here was a guy who could push you to the brink of giving up, and then he does something magical like steer you straight up into a path of moonlight on the water."

Kanae said she read the story to Napoleon and he just laughed and laughed.

"Luciano and the Breakroom Divas" grew out of Kanae's 10 years of working as a secretary before going back to college. She knitted memories of office alliances with an image of a poofy dress that stayed with her for years.

"When Pavarotti came to Honolulu — I can't remember when, in the '80s, my mother bought tickets for my birthday," she said. "I know nothing about opera, but that man's voice just moves me. Anyway, I was sitting in the lodges when I saw the couple depicted in the story. While the Honolulu Symphony warmed up, I wrote down what I saw. A few years later, while I was in a writing class at UH, I pulled the notes together for an assignment — an essay about the near extinction of the mu'u mu'u. The essay ended up in a computer file for another few years. Much later, when I was trying my hand at short story, I found the essay and knew I had to resurrect the ball-of-fabric moment."

The title story, "Islands Linked by Ocean," of her father's illness and subsequent death, is the most personal piece in the collection. Writing it felt like a breakthrough for her, Kanae said. The story includes an almost magical appearance of a fish in a most unlikely place. The fish is the bearer of a message.

"I felt as if I was given that fish for a reason — to help a reader believe. I tell the story to my writing students so that they learn to pay attention when they receive a story that will help define who they are and what they want to do with their lives."

Writing and teaching writing are happily intertwined for Kanae. She has even named a character after a student.

"She was a student who, like me, really doubted her writing. She was terrified of writing because she spoke pidgin exclusively, but she had this gift for telling stories. Bright, funny, animated. She was awesome. She didn't need my help, just confidence. That's all writers need; support and a lot of confidence. When I asked if I could use her name for a character, she was tickled. When the story finally got published in an issue of Bamboo Ridge, I showed her the page with her name. She hugged me and held that book for a long time. It was the first time she had ever seen her name in a book."

The official book launch is this week. "Islands Linked by Ocean" will be available at local bookstores.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.