Hawaiʻi

Our ongo­ing series of inter­views with Native Hawai­ian and local Hawaiʻi writ­ers con­tin­ues this week with Caren Loebel-Fried, the tal­ent­ed award-win­ning author/illustrator. 

Alo­ha, Caren. For those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

Alo­ha, Kamalani. I’m an artist and author from Vol­cano, on Hawai’i’s Big Island. My favorite things are explor­ing wild places, watch­ing and learn­ing about birds, mak­ing art and telling sto­ries about these things.

Where did you grow up? 

I grew up on the New Jer­sey shore, going to the beach in the summer.

Who is your biggest supporter?

My hus­band encour­ages and cheers me on, and some­times joins me on my research adven­tures. Many biol­o­gists, cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers, teach­ers, and librar­i­ans also sup­port my work, and help me get the sto­ry right.

Why did you become a writer/illustrator?

My mom is an artist and still is my great­est inspi­ra­tion. I was always drawn to mak­ing art. And my art has always told sto­ries. When I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate books, I worked to be a bet­ter writer. Now I tell sto­ries with words AND pictures.

What inspired you to write for children?

Pic­ture books were a nat­ur­al fit for me. But I have to admit, I cre­ate my books for all ages — kei­ki and the adults who read to them, and any­one who enjoys a com­pelling sto­ry. I’ve always loved read­ing books writ­ten for all ages, and I col­lect art-filled books that inspire me, no mat­ter what age they are intend­ed for. 

What do you enjoy most about cre­at­ing for kids?

I love shar­ing with a curi­ous audi­ence, and most kei­ki are open and curious.

What are some of your great­est challenges?

My aim is to be a voice for wildlife. My great­est chal­lenge is per­suad­ing peo­ple to care about and want to help native species. I try to do this in a fun way, by cre­at­ing engag­ing sto­ries and art that cap­ture the spir­it and per­son­al­i­ty of the indi­vid­ual ani­mal (includ­ing human!), plant, the nat­ur­al ele­ments and envi­ron­men­tal fea­tures that are my sub­jects… I aim to make art that is col­or­ful, engag­ing, alive. I am also inter­est­ed in cul­ture and how we humans live in our world, inter­act with our envi­ron­ment, and our con­nec­tion to place. Many of us have lost a feel­ing of con­nec­tion to the nat­ur­al world. I try to awak­en or reawak­en that connection.

What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your writing/artistic career?

This year, I’ll be work­ing on my next book with Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawai’i Press. This sto­ry is about Makani, a young Hawai­ian girl named after the wind that seabirds depend on. Makani adores ʻuaʻu, the Hawai­ian petrels that her biol­o­gist mom works with. Seabirds are so cool! But their lives are com­plete­ly hid­den from us. They live over the ocean and only come to land to breed, fly­ing in the dark of night, and nest­ing in bur­rows under­ground. I’ll be telling their amaz­ing sto­ry through the expe­ri­ence of Makani. I hope this book inspires read­ers, espe­cial­ly girls, to explore sci­ence, art, and sto­ry­telling. There are many ways to help wildlife! We can all find our own way to help pre­serve wildlife and wild places.

Do you have a website? 

I do: https://www.carenloebelfried.com/. And I have a YouTube Chan­nel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNgbp1m6lsf6d4w89oV6ung. 

What advice would you give an aspir­ing writer/illustrator?

Keep cre­at­ing! Dis­cov­er the things that are impor­tant to you and tell about them in your work!

Which char­ac­ters do you relate with eas­i­ly? Why?

My last book, Manu, The Boy Who Loved Birds, is about a young boy named after an extinct Hawai­ian for­est bird. I relate to Manu des­per­ate­ly want­i­ng to know the mean­ing of his name, and leav­ing no stone unturned in his jour­ney of dis­cov­ery… and also his dif­fi­cul­ty in believ­ing that extinc­tion is for­ev­er. I also relate to Manu’s par­ents, who won’t just give Manu answers, but instead give him the oppor­tu­ni­ties to make dis­cov­er­ies him­self. I tried to do this with my own son when he was grow­ing up, and now I do it with my read­ers and my books!

Thatʻs a beau­ti­ful book. What beliefs are your books challenging?

It’s hard to hear, learn, believe that things we do may be unin­ten­tion­al­ly hurt­ing wildlife. I try to present the facts, for peo­ple to know for them­selves. But I also present ways that peo­ple can help. I try to write hope­ful, inspir­ing sto­ries and give peo­ple the tools to be an active part of the solution.

Where do you get your ideas and inspirations?

I see some­thing cool out in nature almost every­where and think, Wow- THAT would make a great storybook!

Maha­lo, Caren, for allow­ing me to inter­view you and for shar­ing your man­aʻo! To learn more about Caren, and to see a gallery of art pieces and to con­tact Caren Loebel-Fried, please vis­it Carenʻs web­site.

Our ongo­ing series on Native Hawai­ian and local Hawaiʻi writ­ers con­tin­ues this week with Adam Keawe Man­a­lo-Camp, the tal­ent­ed Native Hawai­ian writer and blog­ger. If you’re a reg­u­lar read­er of Ka Wai Ola O OHA, then you’ve no doubt read Adam’s won­der­ful­ly inter­est­ing, well-researched arti­cles about the his­to­ry and cul­ture of our people.

I’m a huge fan of your writ­ing, Adam. But for those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

The home­lands of my ances­tors are Hawai’i and the Philip­pines. My grand­moth­er grew up in Hon­okaʻa while my moth­er and I grew up in Kewa­lo with­in Papakōlea Hawai­ian Home­stead. My ʻiewe and piko are lit­er­al­ly buried at Papakōlea. I also spent a chunk of my life in the Philip­pines. As far as my research back­ground is most­ly in his­to­ry and anthropology.

Where did you grow up? What high school did you grad from?

I grew up with­in Papakōlea and am a prod­uct of Hawaiʻi’s pub­lic school sys­tem. I grad­u­at­ed from Roo­sevelt High School.

Who is your biggest supporter?

My hus­band. He’s been with me from the very begin­ning when I was get­ting my master’s in coun­sel­ing psy­chol­o­gy and veered off course to be a free­lance writer. The lat­ter and mar­ry­ing him were the best deci­sions I made (besides hav­ing kids)!

That’s awe­some. Why did you become a writer? What inspired you to write for children?

In gen­er­al, my ances­tors. But my moth­er always encour­aged me to write.

Why did you become a writer? What inspires you to write y0our posts and articles? 

I have always liked to write. The first time that a piece of mine was pub­lished was in the ʻŌʻi­wi Lit­er­ary Jour­nal, and I was grad­u­at­ing high school. The late Māhealani Dudoit had dis­cov­ered me through a long email chain where I was talk­ing about the impor­tance of King Kalākaua’s world tour of 1881. I was very self-con­scious because ofbe­ing māhū, neu­ro­di­verse, and hav­ing Eng­lish as my sec­ond language—Hawaiian was my first. Māhealani said she loved how unique my voice was and encour­aged me to keep writ­ing.  It took me a long time to real­ize that what I told in school were my weak­ness­es are actu­al­ly my strengths.

Then some eight years ago, I began writ­ing posts on social media and recent­ly my oth­er pieces and some of my research have appeared in Civ­il Beat, Ka Wai Ola o OHA, Nat­Geo, etc.

What do you enjoy most about writ­ing? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges in writ­ing your arti­cles and posts?

When I write posts, I think of them as love let­ters to my ances­tors and to my cul­ture. I do not have a social media cal­en­dar or plan things out. I write because some­thing inspires me to and I found a par­tic­u­lar top­ic inter­est­ing. I also write in hon­or of my grand­moth­er and moth­er who used to con­stant­ly fill my thoughts with sto­ries of their times and the times of the ances­tors. I know many Kāna­ka Maoli who read my posts may not have their kūpuna around or have been scat­tered through­out Tur­tle Island, and so I would hope some of my posts may be a small light to remind them of where they came from.

Social media can bring so much pos­i­tive atten­tion to indige­nous peo­ples but social media can also be chal­leng­ing. Some folx are on social media plat­forms sim­ply for clout or to attack peo­ple behind a wall of anonymi­ty. I try not to focus on those peo­ple but to focus on the folx out there who are search­ing for man­aʻo and want to engage in aloha.

I always learn some­thing new from your posts. What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your writ­ing career and what you would like to see pub­lished in the future?

I have a cou­ple of arti­cles com­ing out this year includ­ing pieces on Kao­mi. The pan­dem­ic sort of made me rethink my career and what I want to write about. I would want to write more local Fil­ipino and queer his­to­ries as well as more on Hawai­ian strug­gles from a his­tor­i­cal point of view. I would like to also write more fic­tion­al short stories.

I always ask the fol­low­ing of the writ­ers I inter­view: There are not a lot of sto­ries for local kids by local writ­ers. Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do to change that?

I think in gen­er­al there aren’t a lot of works for chil­dren by BIPOC writ­ers in gen­er­al. A lot I believe is the lack of access to pub­lish­ers as well as eco­nom­ic fac­tors. There are a lot of cre­ative Kāna­ka Maoli out there that I know of but due to the cost of liv­ing and oth­er expens­es, some see being cre­ative as a side has­sle as they feel that being cre­ative can­not sus­tain them finan­cial­ly. I myself would not know how to get start­ed in that field.

Do you have a web­site? Are you on social media? Do social media play a role for you as an author? Do your read­ers con­tact you? What do they say?

My link­tree is linktr.ee/adamkeawe That fea­tures links to some of my work and my blog. I got on Face­book about eight years ago, and on there I am admin for the Hawai­ian His­to­ry and Cul­ture group, which has 34,000+ mem­bers. Insta­gram I got on right before the pan­dem­ic and that is where I am more active. I also have Twit­ter but am not too active on there. All of my han­dles for my social media accounts are: adamkeawe.

In gen­er­al read­ers are sup­port­ive and engage in discussions.

What advice do you have for aspir­ing writers?

If your naʻau keeps push­ing you to tell a sto­ry, youʻre a writer. Nev­er be dis­cour­aged nor base your self-worth and your writ­ing on how many likes of fol­low­ers you have. In the end, you will con­nect with who you need to con­nect with.

Can you share a bit of your cur­rent work?

I have two pieces com­ing out soon. One is about Kao­mi and anoth­er is about my moth­erʻs best friend who was a transwoman in the 1970s.

What beliefs are your sto­ries challenging?

Patri­archy, set­tler colo­nial­ism, homo­pho­bia, racism, and anti-Semitism.

Where do you get your inspirations?

I draw a lot of my inspi­ra­tion from my ances­tors and talk­ing to oth­er Kāna­ka Maoli. But I also read oth­er writ­ers from var­i­ous gen­res includ­ing Joy Har­jo, Ninotsche Rosca, Noam Chom­sky, Langston Hugh­es, Audre Lorde, Stephen King, and so many oth­ers. Sci­ence fic­tion such as The Expanse, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Baby­lon 5 inspires me as well.

Your arti­cles and posts demon­strate a lot of research. Whatʻs your research process like? How long is your research for a typ­i­cal article?

Nor­mal­ly I have at least three sources per arti­cle. In social media posts, min­i­mum two.  Before I begin a major writ­ing assign­ment, I chant “E hōmai…” and ask to be guid­ed. I do the same pri­vate­ly before enter­ing a library or archives. I am mind­ful that research is cer­e­mo­ny and method­ol­o­gy is rit­u­al, and I try to bring that into what­ev­er I am work­ing on.

Have you ever con­sid­ered writ­ing a longer work, like a book or screenplay?

Yes. I would rather col­lab­o­rate though because of the time that it takes.

Can you share a bit about what you are work­ing on next?

I am col­lab­o­rat­ing with Kumu Lua Michelle Manu on a book about women warriors.

Women war­riors? I look for­ward to that. Adam, maha­lo nui for shar­ing your man­aʻo! To learn more about Adam Keawe, vis­it his Link­Tree.