06/06/2026
From April 29 - May 1, we partnered with the National Book Foundation (NBF) for their first-ever collaboration program with Hawaiʻi. Oʻahu and Kauaʻi hosted National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist Ingrid Rojas Contreras in a series of readings and dialogues with Hawaiʻi writers and community organizations. Mahalo nui to our many partners who made these events possible, and full of aloha.
1) Ingrid and Natalie Green from NBF joined a group of UH Mānoa students and local writers for a time of exchange and grounding with our friends at Kauluakalana in Kailua, O‘ahu. We learned place names, plant names, and cleared weeds, creating space for food, culture, and stories to flourish for future generations. Mahina Kaomea recounted a moʻolelo of Kawainui Fishpond.
Ingrid led us in a writing exercise of sensory detail and memory, and we then braided our writing about land, spirit, and kūpuna into a collective story (left). Photo credit: Kristiana Kahakauwila
2) The UH Mānoa Creative Writing Department co-hosted “The Language of Home,” a public reading and discussion with Ingrid and Hawaiʻi Poet Laureate Lee A. Tonouchi, moderated by local writer and professor Kristiana Kahakauwila.
Both writers reflected on the power of humor to talk about tragedy and grief—of a war-torn country, the death of loved ones, the loss of language or identity. Humor has the magic ability to help a story just “slip in,” Ingrid shared, deeper into someone’s heart.
3) At “What Haunts Us,” hosted by the Kaua‘i Writers Garden Hale in Līhuʻe, Kauaʻi, Ingrid talked story with local writer thomas iannucci. They talked about exorcism, how ghosts walk, and the ethics of community storytelling—how do you write about real people, histories, your family, even if it means telling painful stories? Ingrid shared the importance of “not flattening stories,” but instead being curious about people and letting them move in unexpected directions. If we flatten stories, “we don’t allow for grace, for people to return.”
