kids

Hawaiʻi-based author Vera Ari­ta has spent her life help­ing spe­cial-needs chil­dren to suc­ceed. Her chil­drenʻs books focus on Hawaiʻi themes and encour­age chil­dren to  delight in the world around them. 

Maha­lo, Vera, for allow­ing me to fea­ture you on my blog. For those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

Alo­ha all! I’m Vera Ari­ta, and I am a retired spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher.  I taught for 32 years, and then I retired from Mililani Ike Ele­men­tary in Cen­tral Oʻahu in 2016. I am cur­rent­ly a half time field ser­vice instruc­tor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, and I help stu­dents learn how to be spe­cial edu­ca­tion teach­ers. I live in Mililani with my hus­band, Neal, and we have two sons/two daugh­ters-in-laws, two grand­sons and a granddaughter. 

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

I grew up in Waipahu and went to Waipahu Ele­men­tary, Inter­me­di­ate and High School.

Go, Maraud­ers! Who is your biggest supporter?

For sure my hus­band, Neal, our sons and extend­ed fam­i­ly! I also have great teacher and church friends who come out full force to sup­port my book signings.

Why did you become a writer? What inspired you to write for children?

In my teach­ing career, I always had a dream to write children’s books to share the love, care and life lessons I’d grown to appre­ci­ate. I believe the inspi­ra­tion also comes through my faith in Christ. My first book, All Around the Islands, came out in 2005.  I ded­i­cat­ed my first book to my par­ents, Bolo and Eileen Sone­da, because my dad was very ill, and Iʻd promised him that I would write a book someday. 

What do you enjoy most about writ­ing for kids? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges in writ­ing for children?

I think hav­ing kids learn about ani­mals or the sounds of the let­ters in rhyme is very reward­ing. My fourth book, Alpha­bet Huk­i­lau, was writ­ten on an iPad! I was just kick­ing around with the idea of a net catch­ing let­ters instead of sea ani­mals. At the back of the book there is non-fic­tion infor­ma­tion of the sea ani­mals since much of our con­tent stan­dards deals with read­ing non-fic­tion books. 

The chal­lenge for any author is find­ing a pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny who is will­ing to risk cre­at­ing a book with your words. 

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?

Teach­ing chil­dren has been, and is, my pas­sion, and cur­rent­ly my pub­lish­er is con­sid­er­ing a count­ing book that is quite whimsical.

There are not a lot of sto­ries for or by Native Hawai­ians and Pacif­ic Islanders. Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do the change that?

Again, you have to find a pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny who believes in your writ­ing.  I believe that in Hawaii, most pub­lish­ers have to cater to the tourist mar­ket for their books to sell. I’m hop­ing that my new book, which pro­motes char­ac­ter edu­ca­tion, will be in all schools in Hawaii and nationwide.

Do you have a web­site? Are you on social media? Do you do school visits?

I do not cur­rent­ly have a web­site, but I am on Insta­gram Vera­sonedaari­ta or you can email me. I do school vis­its where I share the writ­ing process and share sketch­es of how a book is formed.  I often browse through reviews on Ama­zon of my books and find it very hum­bling to get such rave reviews.

What advice do you have for aspir­ing writers?

Nev­er give up on your dreams. You have to reach out to many pub­lish­ers and not get dis­cour­aged. My pub­lish­er told me she receives sub­mis­sions near­ly every day, and few are picked up to be published.

Can you share a bit of your cur­rent work?

Alo­hasaurus is a sto­ry that I think many peo­ple can real­ly relate to.  It’s about a dinosaur who has no friends because he looks dif­fer­ent, and he sounds dif­fer­ent.  In many ways it’s like my broth­er, Mike, who, was socially“different.”  Mike was born with men­tal and phys­i­cal chal­lenges.  Sad­ly, Mike recent­ly passed away in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber 2022, so he did not get a chance to see the book.

In the sto­ry, a group of curi­ous and coura­geous chil­dren befriend the dinosaur, and in turn, he teach­es them ways to be kind and how to mod­el alo­ha. Through their new­ly found friend­ship, they name him “Alo­hasaurus.”

As a sub­sti­tute teacher, I’ve been test mar­ket­ing the draft of the book with stu­dents, and it has got­ten “5 star” reviews from them! I have even shared the book with some mid­dle school stu­dents, and they real­ly liked the sto­ry. Their encour­age­ment has been uplift­ing and so precious.

Which of your books did you have the most fun writ­ing? Which was the most challenging?

My third book, Ani­mals Sing Alo­ha. It is a phon­ics book that teach­es how to write and sound out the alpha­bets cor­rect­ly. It was a sur­prise because the draft was lit­er­al­ly writ­ten on the back of an anniver­sary card while I was in a Maui hotel lob­by on vaca­tion. I tell stu­dents that when inspi­ra­tion hits, you have to be ready to write!  That book has been my best-sell­ing book to date.

Most chal­leng­ing is Alo­hasaurus because it’s been on the back burn­er since 2007!  I wrote the draft on the back of ser­mon notes in church and always felt that this would be a great book; how­ev­er, the pub­lish­er wise­ly was wait­ing for the right time to cre­ate it — and now is the time!

What beliefs are your books challenging?

They chal­lenge peo­ples’ beliefs that you have to look and act like every­one else to be suc­cess­ful. The les­son to the read­ers is that you can be a suc­cess if you are kind to oth­ers, speak respect­ful­ly, work hard and are a team player.

What’s your expe­ri­ence with pub­lish­ing your books?

I learned that when you sign a con­tract, all your future man­u­scripts go to them first and if they reject it, then you are free to go to anoth­er pub­lish­er. Also, the pub­lish­er can edit your writ­ing if they feel it flows bet­ter a dif­fer­ent way. There needs to be trust that the pub­lish­er knows what it takes for a suc­cess­ful book; how­ev­er, there may be times when you must per­se­vere and not give up on a reject­ed book.

Where do you get ideas for your books?

It seems that dif­fi­cult fam­i­ly times pro­vid­ed inspi­ra­tion for me to write. In 2006 my broth­er, Mike, had a seizure and hit his head very hard and became brain-dam­aged.  While he was in an extend­ed coma, I promised to write anoth­er book and ded­i­cate it to him. Thus, Can you Catch a Coqui Frog was written. 

Authors write to per­suade, inform or enter­tain.  My books fall between inform­ing and enter­tain­ing. As a teacher I couldn’t find a book that men­tioned all eight Hawai­ian Islands, so that’s how All Around the Islands came about.  Alo­hasaurus men­tions dif­fer­ent kinds of car­ing for peo­ple and for our ʻāina.

Which char­ac­ters do you relate with eas­i­ly? Why?

In fic­tion­al sto­ries, I relate to the char­ac­ter who real­ly aren’t out­stand­ing, but through much deter­mi­na­tion and hard work, they are able to achieve a lot.  One of my favorite bible vers­es is Philip­pi­ans 4:13: I can do all things through Christ Jesus. A good exam­ple of this is that I recent­ly decid­ed to enter the Hon­olu­lu Marathon with three months left to train. I did it 10 years ago but trained for a year back then. With the Lord’s help, I can do it again.

Maha­lo nui, Vera! To con­tact Vera Ari­ta and learn more about her books, please fol­low her Vera­sonedaari­ta in Instagram.

Wel­come to our lat­est inter­view with Native Hawai­ian and local Hawaiʻi writ­ers!  Author Dani Hick­man is the author of four delight­ful chil­dren’s books pub­lished by Island Heritage. 

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

I’m a mar­ried local girl with four adult chil­dren. My youngest, who co-authored two of my books (How About a Pineap­ple? and Tako Lends a Help­ing Hand) just went off to col­lege. My home in Wai­pio is still full with four dogs, one cat and one very fat beta fish. My day job is in Human Resources at a local adult in-home care service.

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

I’m a town­ie who grad­u­at­ed from McKin­ley High School. Go Tigers!

Indeed! Who is your biggest supporter?

My hus­band, Jeff, is my part­ner in all things. From rais­ing the kids, to edit­ing my writ­ing, to being my arm can­dy at author events, Jeff has always been my rock. He is a Kame­hame­ha grad and retired Nation­al Guard Vet­er­an. His feed­back and con­tri­bu­tions in my sto­ries def­i­nite­ly helps me add more “fla­vor” to any­thing I do.

Why did you become a writer? What inspired you to write for children?

I’ve always writ­ten short sto­ries and poems since I was lit­tle. Pub­lish­ing always seemed like some­thing that was too dif­fi­cult to achieve and I had no idea where to even begin. I had a co-work­er, Tam­my Paikai, who pub­lished a few children’s books and inspired me to give it a try. She was incred­i­bly help­ful and encour­ag­ing with all the behind the scenes stuff, like set­ting up for a book sign­ing and being resilient dur­ing the edit­ing process. I also LOVE her books. “Too Many Man­gos” is my favorite Tam­my Paikai book, so relat­able in Hawaii and a great les­son of giving.

What do you enjoy most about writ­ing for kids? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges in writ­ing for children?

I love the book sign­ings and read­ing at the schools! Meet­ing chil­dren and hear­ing them say how much they love the sto­ry is such a heart­warm­ing expe­ri­ence. My biggest prob­lem when writ­ing for chil­dren is my love for big words. Keep­ing sto­ries at 2nd grade read­ing lev­el and replac­ing “ver­bose” with “talk­a­tive” or “mean” in place of “mali­cious” is a chal­lenge. My kids always loved “big” words but my edi­tor has a dif­fer­ent viewpoint.

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’d like to pub­lish a chap­ter book for teens with a Hawaiʻi sto­ry­line. Maybe even a Hawaiʻi graph­ic nov­el. I’d also love to do a sequel for my first book, Pono, the Gar­den Guardian. He’s my favorite lit­tle guy with a big heart. I have a rough idea of what I’d like his next chap­ter to be. Pub­lish­ing anoth­er adven­ture for him would be amazing.

There are not a lot of sto­ries for or by Native Hawai­ians and Pacif­ic Islanders. Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do the change that?

I agree that there are not enough Hawaiian/Pacific Islander children’s book authors. In my opin­ion, I think part of that stems from the Hawai­ian cul­ture itself. Hawai­ian is a spo­ken lan­guage, tra­di­tion­al­ly pass­ing sto­ries through chants, song and dance. The lack of a writ­ten Hawai­ian lan­guage did not become issue until the arrival of the mis­sion­ar­ies. Today, there seems to be a lim­it­ed group of tra­di­tion­al kumu who are per­pet­u­at­ing the cul­ture as they always have, through oral teach­ings. I think more in the com­mu­ni­ty are try­ing to reach out to kei­ki, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, the pool of knowl­edge­able experts with a pas­sion for writ­ing and a focus on children’s sto­ries is small. It may be help­ful to have more out­reach by cul­tur­al groups to encour­age kei­ki to put their demands out there for books and also writ­ing their own stories.

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 web­site is sore­ly out of date. Iʻm also on Face­book. I been have slack­ing off con­sid­er­ably in pro­mot­ing my books in the last cou­ple of years. My focus was on my fam­i­ly and get­ting my daugh­ter set up for col­lege. Now that she is in col­lege, I hope to get back to it. I have got­ten email sent from my web­site, direct mes­sages and com­ments on face­book and my direct email. Most of the feed­back was through social media. A major­i­ty of the com­ments were around how much they liked the char­ac­ters. A few made wel­come cri­tiques of dif­fer­ent direc­tions the sto­ry could have gone. My favorite bit of feed­back was that I didn’t name the pup­py in How About a Pineap­ple? I pur­pose­ful­ly left out a name because I noticed many chil­dren com­ing to book sign­ings men­tioned that their dog was the dog in the book. I felt nam­ing the dog exclud­ed all those kei­ki with white dogs that want­ed to imag­ine their pup­py on an adven­ture. The dog is named Kea in the book descrip­tion but not in the sto­ry, and I still appre­ci­ate the comment.

What advice do you have for aspir­ing writers?

READ READ READ! Learn how oth­ers weave their sto­ries and devel­op their char­ac­ters. All those dif­fer­ent styles helps you find your own. Be open to feed­back from oth­ers, it can only make you bet­ter. Write about what inspires you. Don’t be dis­cour­aged — keep trying.

Can you share a bit of your cur­rent work?

The last book I pub­lished was a baby book, Rain­bow Friends in the Sea. I’ve always loved rain­bows and want­ed to write a col­or book for lit­tle ones. It’s a board book with a sim­ple rhyming theme show­ing the basic col­ors of the rain­bow in sea life. My favorite part of the book is a mir­ror in the end, because “You’re my newest Rain­bow Friend.”

Which of your books did you have the most fun writ­ing? Which were the most challenging?

Writ­ing How About a Pineap­ple? with my daugh­ter was the best expe­ri­ence. At 12 years old she was burst­ing with ideas and edits. It was a bless­ing work­ing with her.

My first book, Pono the Gar­den Guardian, was the hard­est to write. I invest­ed a great deal of my heart in that book, and it was too long. The text need­ed to be cut in half. Cut­ting some­thing you love down to its core was very dif­fi­cult for me but also a valu­able les­son. Great sto­ries can be a rela­tion­ship between the author and the read­er. Using few­er words allows the read­er to fill their mind with the pic­tures they cre­ate. The writ­ing is just there to point and to guide.

What beliefs are your books challenging? 

I think there are many sto­ries about heroes. I believe every­one can be a hero. You just have to decide how. My char­ac­ters aren’t “super,” they’re YOU in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions. They’re YOU choos­ing to be a good per­son in a small, but sig­nif­i­cant way.

What’s your expe­ri­ence with pub­lish­ing your books?

I’ve had good expe­ri­ences with my pub­lish­er. Island Her­itage is well known for qual­i­ty and has a his­to­ry of amaz­ing works. I’m hon­ored that they allowed me to share my sto­ries and sup­port me as an author.

Where do you get ideas for your books?

I write sto­ries I want my chil­dren to learn from. I take a les­son like self-less giv­ing, doing what’s right and work­ing well with oth­ers, and I have the char­ac­ters show you why that les­son mat­ters. Inspi­ra­tion is every­where and in com­mon every­day things. Children’s sto­ries should shine a light on a dif­fer­ent way to look at some­thing, from dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. It’s a great way to learn no mat­ter what your age. 

Which char­ac­ters do you relate with eas­i­ly? Why?

The char­ac­ter clos­est to me is Tako Lends a Help­ing Hand. Tako wants to help every­one but takes on more than she can do and ends up for­get­ting every­thing she’s already promised. Man­ag­ing tasks and time while work­ing with oth­ers to get things done is some­thing I think many peo­ple can relate to. Tako is an octo­pus, so it’s a lit­tle wish­ful think­ing to hope for a few extra hands on busy days.

Can you share a bit about your next book?

 I always have 10–12 books in dif­fer­ent stages at all times. It’s com­mon for me to put some­thing down for months and come back to it with fresh eyes. The book I have that’s a bit far­ther along than most is a sto­ry about not want­i­ng to go to bed. It’s got more of a nation­al theme, and it rhymes, which is always a bit more chal­leng­ing to get the rhythm right. Many par­ents can con­nect to a sto­ry of a child want­i­ng to stay up a lit­tle lat­er than they should.

Maha­lo, Dani, for shar­ing your man­aʻo with us! To con­tact Dani Hick­man and learn more about her books, please vis­it her web­site at thedanihickman.com. 

Today I am delight­ed to fea­ture my friend, the tal­ent­ed Native Hawai­ian author Tam­my Paikai.  Her five pic­ture books cov­er sub­jects that teach chil­dren impor­tant life lessons but do so in a fun and approach­able way that kids — and their par­ents — love. 

Alo­ha, Tam­my. It’s so good to talk with you! For those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

I like to describe myself as a kind and good per­son.  I was inspired by my father who was my role mod­el grow­ing up.  He was a gen­tle soul, yet had a wit­ty sense of humor that always made me laugh. 

Being a young mom of three won­der­ful chil­dren, my first career was to help sup­port my grow­ing fam­i­ly.  I worked for 20 years at The Plaza Hotel by the Hon­olu­lu Inter­na­tion­al Air­port as the Senior Reser­va­tions Clerk.  In the hos­pi­tal­i­ty indus­try I could help oth­ers and that gave me the most satisfaction. 

My sec­ond career was for me because I had always want­ed to do some­thing cre­ative in my life.  I worked for Island Her­itage as a Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Front Office Admin­is­tra­tor for 17 years, and it was such a joy to be around so many cre­ative peo­ple.  I feel so blessed that Island Her­itage gave me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to write books for chil­dren.  It has real­ly been a dream come true.

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

Although I was born in Hon­olu­lu, Hawaiʻi, my ele­men­tary years were most­ly spent in Rese­da, Cal­i­for­nia.  I returned back to Hawaiʻi when I was 10 years old and attend­ed sev­er­al schools on the West side of the island.  I even­tu­al­ly grad­u­at­ed from Aiea High School.  Liv­ing in Hawaii was where I learned about all the dif­fer­ent eth­nic­i­ties and cul­tures of the islands. 

Who is your biggest supporter?

My biggest sup­port­ers are my fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly my hus­band of 40+ years.  He always believed in me and my tal­ent.  To this day he loves to share my sto­ries with his young stu­dents.  He has been a Hawai­ian Stud­ies teacher since 1988.  I am so hap­py that he can share these sto­ries with a mes­sage of alo­ha, shar­ing, laugh­ter, fun and self-confidence. 

Why did you become a writer? What inspired you to write for children?

It was a desire deep inside of me to be cre­ative.  From child­hood, I drew car­toons and wrote poet­ry for fun.  At Island Her­itage I want­ed to try my hand at being a writer.  The Cre­ative Direc­tor sug­gest­ed that I sub­mit a man­u­script.  I came up with a lit­tle poem called, Alo­ha Is…,and it was accept­ed and pub­lished in 2006.  To this day, it is still one of Island Her­itage’s Best Sell­ers.  This sto­ry is in rhyme and shares the many mean­ings of alo­ha.  Illus­trat­ed by Ros­alie Pruss­ing, the pic­tures are absolute­ly a work of art! I want­ed to write for the chil­dren of Hawaii to give them books about “us.”  I was very lucky to be part­nered with great artists that brought my sto­ries to life.  Their tal­ents helped me share the beau­ty of our peo­ple, our val­ues, our lifestyle and our home. 

What do you enjoy most about writ­ing for kids? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges in writ­ing for children?

I real­ly enjoy when the kids con­nect with my sto­ries. Like in Too Many Man­goes, per­haps they have man­goes that they have shared with their neigh­bors or maybe they have a hard-of-hear­ing grand­pa too.  I am in awe when some­one says that my book is one of their favorites.  Nev­er in my wildest dreams did I think that would ever hap­pen!  It makes me feel so proud that I can bring joy to oth­ers in my own lit­tle way.  My great­est chal­lenge would be com­ing up with an idea for a sto­ry.  I want all of my sto­ries to be upbeat and pos­i­tive.  I want to give a good mes­sage to the chil­dren and make them smile. 

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?

Right now I am just enjoy­ing my lat­est book, I am Kiki!  I Love Me! which just came out this sum­mer 2022.  The sto­ry begins with Kiki singing a song to her­self on the beach of Hawaiʻi until a vol­ley­ball play­er teas­es her for being so short.  Kiki loves her­self and won’t let oth­ers bring her down.  Illus­trat­ed by Eliza Fort­ney,  the beach scenes are absolute­ly beau­ti­ful with lots to look at. 

I have been wait­ing a very long time to have this sto­ry pub­lished.  I love this sto­ry because I hope to inspire young chil­dren to sim­ply love them­selves the way they are and not let oth­ers make them feel bad about them­selves.  Also, I was able to add a lit­tle poet­ry in the sto­ry which is a fun touch for Kik­i’s confidence. 

There are not a lot of sto­ries for or by Native Hawai­ians and Pacif­ic Islanders. Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do the change that?

We should always encour­age peo­ple to share their own sto­ries.  Like my co-work­er sim­ply encour­aged me to sub­mit a man­u­script, I thought it would be hard­er than that.   Years, lat­er I encour­aged a friend to sub­mit a man­u­script, now she is a pub­lished chil­dren’s author at Island Her­itage too. 

What advice do you have for aspir­ing writers?

 If I can do it, so can you!  Write what you know about, what you enjoy, what you love, etc.  Also, read it out loud to your­self, over and over again to make sure it is just right.  Have a good mes­sage or moral if it is a chil­dren’s sto­ry.  Take pride in your work! 

Which of your books did you have the most fun writ­ing? Which were the most challenging?

I enjoyed writ­ing Too Many Man­goes, a sto­ry about shar­ing.  Grand­pa has so many man­goes that he asks his grand­chil­dren to share the man­goes with the neigh­bors.  Illus­tra­tor Don Robin­son’s char­ac­ters are so delight­ful. I was able to incor­po­rate my fam­i­ly’s names in the sto­ry, and I real­ly did climb my Grand­pa’s man­go tree when I was a child.  By the way, my grand­pa’s name was Mr. Wong, just like the in the story! 

Which were the most chal­leng­ing?  I want­ed to do a fun­ny book with rhymes.  Grand­pa’s Mixed-Up Lūʻau is what hap­pens when a lov­able, but hard-of-hear­ing Grand­pa tries to help Grand­ma get ready for a lūʻau.  Also illus­trat­ed by Don Robin­son, the sto­ry unfolds with his beau­ti­ful pic­tures. At first things were flow­ing nice­ly:  “boy” rhymes with “poi,” “Malia” rhymes with “hau­pia.” But I strug­gled with a rhyme for “kalua pig.”  Then inspi­ra­tion came from above, “Canoe that’s big!” 

What’s your expe­ri­ence with pub­lish­ing your books?

It’s been excel­lent!  The Cre­ative peo­ple at Island Her­itage, a.k.a. The Mad­den Cor­po­ra­tion were not only pro­fes­sion­al but super cre­ative and extreme­ly tal­ent­ed.  I’m sure it helped me by being a co-work­er/friend to the Cre­ative Depart­ment.  Their web­site has not only my books but also they have beau­ti­ful Hawai­ian themed gifts and souvenirs. 

Where do you get ideas for your books?

Hon­esty, I believe my inspi­ra­tion comes from “above.”  Some­thing hap­pens and the title pops in my head and the writ­ing part comes easy after that.  For exam­ple, one day my neigh­bor came to our house and asked if we saw her pet tur­tle that they lost.  I thought to myself, Honu, Honu, Where are You? and then wrote the rhyme for that play­ful sto­ry about baby dol­phin look­ing for his friend, Honu, the sea tur­tle.  Yuko Green who clev­er­ly illus­trat­ed the book using flaps to help hide the tur­tles in  this story. 

Anoth­er time, my daugh­ter was telling me that she put capers in her salmon dish.  I heard “papers” and ques­tioned her about what kind of papers?  She was annoyed, but I thought it was fun­ny.  So I came up with Grand­pa’s Mixed-Up Luau.    

Which char­ac­ters do you relate with eas­i­ly? Why?

Kiki would be the char­ac­ter that I most relate too.  She is short, wears glass­es and is hap­py-go-lucky.  As a young girl my broth­er would tease me and I did­n’t stand up for myself.  I wrote Kiki want­i­ng young girls to love them­selves so that if oth­ers tease her, it would not affect her self-esteem.  My daugh­ter was work­ing on a project a few years ago about empow­er­ment for women of col­or.  That project inspired me to write I am Kiki! I Love Me!  

This is great, Tam­my. Any­thing else?

Maha­lo to my long time friend, Kamalani Hur­ley.  I am so hon­ored for her to share my hum­ble sto­ry.  Also, many thanks to the peo­ple of Hawaii for mak­ing me feel spe­cial and embrac­ing my sto­ries that I real­ly loved writ­ing.  Dreams do come true, thanks to you!

Maha­lo to YOU, Tam­my! We look for­ward to many more of your sto­ries for kei­ki! To con­tact Tam­my Paikai and learn more about her books, please vis­it the Island Her­itage website

Wel­come to the first in a new series of inter­views with Native Hawai­ian and local Hawaiʻi writers! 

I am very pleased to intro­duce award-win­ning author Ili­ma Loomis. She has an exten­sive back­ground not only in writ­ing for chil­dren but also in jour­nal­ism, con­tent mar­ket­ing, sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. Her goal is to help her read­ers to make sense of com­pli­cat­ed subjects.

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

Alo­ha! My name is Ili­ma Loomis, and I’m the author of chil­dren’s books includ­ing ‘Ohana Means Fam­i­ly and Eclipse Chas­er: Sci­ence in the Moon’s Shad­ow. Along with writ­ing books for young read­ers, I also work as a sci­ence writer! I inter­view sci­en­tists and help explain their research and dis­cov­er­ies for a gen­er­al audi­ence. I start­ed my career as a com­mu­ni­ty jour­nal­ist, work­ing as a reporter for The Maui News. While I was born and lived most of my life in Hawaii, I recent­ly moved to Van­cou­ver, Canada.

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

I was born and raised in Kailua, Oahu, and I grad­u­at­ed from Iolani School in Hon­olu­lu. Go Raiders!

Who is your biggest supporter?

My daugh­ter is 15, and she recent­ly told me that she was proud of what I do and she thought I was cool. That real­ly meant so much to me! I’m grate­ful to be her mom. She inspires me.

Thatʻs very cool. Why did you become a writer? What inspired you to write for children?

I actu­al­ly start­ed out as a jour­nal­ist. I’ve always writ­ten non­fic­tion because I’m inspired by the real world. My first chil­dren’s book was actu­al­ly a spin-off from a non­fic­tion book I wrote about pan­io­lo and ranch­ing in Hawaii. After I fin­ished the book for adults, I thought it would also make a good sub­ject for kids, so I pitched and wrote a pic­ture book. I loved the expe­ri­ence of writ­ing for kids and was hooked.

What do you enjoy most about writ­ing for kids? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges in writ­ing for children?

I love the chal­lenge of tak­ing a com­plex sub­ject and fig­ur­ing out how to dis­till it into a sto­ry that kids will under­stand and relate to or find inter­est­ing. It real­ly forces you as a writer to think about what’s most impor­tant and what you most want to say. It’s such a short for­mat, there’s no room for any ram­bling or digres­sion. Even though I’m writ­ing non­fic­tion, I still have to think cre­ative­ly about how to say what I want to say, and how to turn these cold facts into a sto­ry that makes the read­er feel emo­tion. It makes me a bet­ter writer. 

There are not a lot of sto­ries for or by Native Hawai­ians and Pacif­ic Islanders. Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do the change that?

First, I want to note that I’m not Native Hawai­ian; I’m from a mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional kama’aina fam­i­ly. Hawaiʻi is my home, and it meant so much to me to be able to share some­thing about Hawaiʻi’s cul­ture with this book. I also want to cred­it and thank Hōkūao Pel­le­gri­no for review­ing and adding his cul­tur­al exper­tise to the book.

I absolute­ly believe that there is a huge need for more books for and by Native Hawai­ians and Pacif­ic Islanders. It’s grat­i­fy­ing to see that chil­dren’s pub­lish­ing has embraced diver­si­ty in the last few years and is start­ing to catch up with the long over­looked need for sto­ries that reflect the diverse world in which we live. That push for diver­si­ty needs to include indige­nous voic­es, in par­tic­u­lar Native Hawai­ians and Pacif­ic Islanders.

There’s a lot I don’t under­stand about how pub­lish­ing works as an indus­try, but I do think that orga­ni­za­tions like SCBWI (Soci­ety of Chil­drenʻs Book Writ­ers and Illus­tra­tors) can sup­port this move­ment by con­tin­u­ing to work on being more diverse and inclu­sive in their mem­ber­ship and pro­grams for up-and-com­ing writ­ers and illus­tra­tors. I think the SCBWI Hawaiʻi Chap­ter is doing a great job on that and I hope they con­tin­ue to push even hard­er toward those goals. And of course as read­ers the best thing we can do to show pub­lish­ers that there’s demand for books by and for Native Hawai­ians and Pacif­ic Islanders is to buy and sup­port the books that are already out there. I think it’s espe­cial­ly impor­tant to sup­port local Hawaii pub­lish­ers, because they’re the ones lead­ing the way in shar­ing Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander sto­ries, and that’s where many new writ­ers and illus­tra­tors get their start. Local pub­lish­ers are an impor­tant resource for read­ers and writ­ers in Hawaii, and we need to sup­port them!

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?

I do some social media (where else would I find an out­let for all the pho­tos I take of my dog??). Writ­ing can be a lone­ly activ­i­ty, so I found that social media was a great way to con­nect with oth­er writ­ers and build com­mu­ni­ty. I do some­times hear from read­ers, and I absolute­ly love it when I see peo­ple share that they enjoyed my book. It’s espe­cial­ly cool when I see the book shared by librar­i­ans or teach­ers! As an author though, I try to turn off the social media for a while so I can focus on my writ­ing with­out distractions.

What advice do you have for aspir­ing writers?

There’s no sub­sti­tute for just writ­ing a lot and putting it out there for peo­ple to read. I actu­al­ly believe it’s more impor­tant to write a lot than to write well. You learn some­thing every time your work gets released into the world, so take every oppor­tu­ni­ty you can. Some writ­ers will hang on to their work, pol­ish­ing and pol­ish­ing, because it’s nev­er good enough. Per­fec­tion­ism is a killer. Just let it go.

Can you share a bit of your cur­rent work?

I’m work­ing on an idea about pol­li­na­tor gar­dens! I’m inspired by small-scale conservation.

Which of your books did you have the most fun writ­ing? Which were the most challenging?

I actu­al­ly had an incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence writ­ing Eclipse Chas­er. I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to trav­el to the 2017 total solar eclipse with Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii solar physi­cist Sha­dia Hab­bal and her team. We camped in the Ore­gon desert, and she allowed me to doc­u­ment her expe­di­tion for the book. It was a once-in-a-life­time experience!

What beliefs are your books challenging?

Inter­est­ing ques­tion! I don’t think I set out to chal­lenge peo­ple’s beliefs, but in ‘Ohana Means Fam­i­ly I want­ed read­ers to reflect on how food con­nects us with each oth­er, with nature, and with the world.

What’s your expe­ri­ence with pub­lish­ing your books?

My first two books, Ka’im­i’s First Round-Up and Rough Rid­ers: Hawai­i’s Pan­io­lo and Their Sto­ries were pub­lished with a local pub­lish­er (Island Her­itage). It was a great expe­ri­ence, and I am real­ly grate­ful Island Her­itage took a chance on my books and gave me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work on those projects as a young writer. I actu­al­ly orig­i­nal­ly wrote ‘Ohana Means Fam­i­ly with the inten­tion of pub­lish­ing it local­ly as well. But when I con­nect­ed with my agent, Kel­ly Son­nack, she thought there would be inter­est out­side of Hawaii. She end­ed up sell­ing it to Neal Porter, an acclaimed chil­dren’s book edi­tor. It was an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to be able to work with Neal on my first pic­ture book out­side of Hawaii, and I think he did an amaz­ing job with the book. I was espe­cial­ly excit­ed that he select­ed illus­tra­tor Kenard Pak to cre­ate the art, and I think the results were absolute­ly gorgeous.

Where do you get ideas for your books?

I’m inspired by the nat­ur­al world and how humans inter­act with nature!

Which char­ac­ters do you relate with eas­i­ly? Why?

I’m a qui­et, intro­spec­tive per­son, so I usu­al­ly relate to qui­et, intro­spec­tive characters.

Can you share a bit about your next book?

As I men­tioned, I’m work­ing about a book about pol­li­na­tor gar­dens. For inspi­ra­tion, I plant­ed some native wild­flow­ers in a planter on my deck. Now that I live in the Pacif­ic North­west there are so many plants and ani­mals that are new to me. I love watch­ing the bees buzzing around the flow­ers, and I’m espe­cial­ly excit­ed every time hum­ming­birds come for a vis­it! They’re so tiny and cute! I love the idea that humans can inter­act with nature and sup­port con­ser­va­tion even if they live in small spaces or in the mid­dle of a big city.

 

Maha­lo nui, Ili­ma, and best wish­es for your con­tin­ued suc­cess! To con­tact Ili­ma Loomis and learn more about her books, vis­it her web­site, Ilimaloomis.com.