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Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author
Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author
Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author

About

Weli­na mai! Wel­come to my website!

My name is Kamalani, and I am a Native Hawai­ian who writes sto­ries for and about Native Hawai­ian kids. My name, Kamalani, means “child of heav­en” which, in typ­i­cal native tra­di­tion, came to my mom in a dream.

I grew up in the work­ing class neigh­bor­hood of Kali­hi-Pāla­ma. My rough and tum­ble kid-time years were spent at Kaʻi­u­lani Ele­men­tary School across the street from Kau­makapili Church and Tamashiro Mar­ket. My love of his­to­ry start­ed ear­ly when, as a child, I would read the head­stones at the ceme­ter­ies at Kamoʻil­iʻili and Kawa­ia­haʻo church­es where my grand-uncle, John Kil­ia, was a dea­con. I grad­u­at­ed from the Kame­hame­ha Schools and then earned advanced degrees on the continent.

Some things about me:

  • Remem­ber­ing stuff is my super-pow­er. I have a pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry, so I think I would be real­ly good at play­ing Jeop­ardy.
  • I’m pret­ty good at learn­ing lan­guages, too. I went to Japan­ese school (Pala­ma Nip­pon­go Gakko) as a kid. I speak pret­ty flu­ent Span­ish, and I learned a lot of Kore­an from the K‑dramas I love to watch. But I don’t speak as much Hawai­ian as I should.
  • The very first sto­ry I ever pub­lished was about Up with Peo­ple! in the sixth grade. Lat­er in high school I became the fea­ture co-edi­tor for Ka Mōʻī, the stu­dent newspaper.
  • I am grate­ful to Ke Aliʻi Pauahi for allow­ing this hapa-haole kid to attend Kame­hame­ha. But like many of my gen­er­a­tion, I didn’t learn our native lan­guage and his­to­ry until after high school, dur­ing the Hawai­ian Renais­sance of the 1970s.
  • I spent many hap­py years teach­ing lin­guis­tics and busi­ness writ­ing to col­lege stu­dents and pub­lish­ing Pūpū A ʻO ʻEwa Native Hawai­ian writ­ing and arts website. 
  • I am a “Pro­fes­sor Emeri­ta.” That means I have col­lege library priv­i­leges for life (yay!)
  • I am an avid read­er and gar­den­er, hav­ing inher­it­ed my love of books from my father and my green thumb from my mother.
  • My fam­i­ly is my hus­band, our daugh­ters, our grand­kids, and two beach-lov­ing dogs along with a bunch of aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews, and we all live on the islands of Oʻahu and Kauaʻi.

My agent is the amaz­ing James McGowan, Book­Ends Lit­er­ary Agency.

Podcast

Interviews

Panel

  • Top­ic: Is the CTC Right for Me? March 6, 2023. In sup­port of the Writ­ing Barn Courage to Cre­ate group.

Memberships

  • Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Hawai’i
  • Coun­cil for Native Hawai­ian Advancement
  • Courage to Cre­ate Com­mu­ni­ty at The Writ­ing Barn
  • Friends of the Library of Hawai’i
  • Soci­ety of Chil­dren’s Book Writ­ers and Illustrators
Kamalani Hurley
Kamalani Hur­ley
[pho­to: Rok­ki Midro]