Writing the Hawai‘i Memoir

This award-winning writing guide from Watermark Publishing (our traditional publishing division) is an essential read for all aspiring memoirists. Author Darien Gee, a nationally bestselling novelist and writing coach based in Waimea, Hawai‘i, has assembled a collection of writing exercises, advice from more than 20 other Hawai‘i writers and detailed explanations of the various steps and phases in the memoir-writing experience. Appendices also cover other types of life-writing, such as autobiography/biography, oral history and corporate biographies, plus a handy list of resources.

Contributing writers include: Billy Bergin, Pamela Varma Brown, Bob Buss, Lee Cataluna, Ben Cayetano, Stuart Homes Coleman, Craig Howes, Patricia Jennings, Frances Kakugawa, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, Beth-Ann Kozlovich, Leslie Lang, Gail Miyasaki, Warren Nishimoto, Mark Panek, Laurie Rubin, Phil Slott, Christine Thomas, David Ulrich, Chris Vandercook and Cedric Yamanaka.

Winner, Hawai'i Book Publishers Association 2015 Ka Palapala Po'okela Award of Excellence, Special Interest Books

Here are practical tips and tools to take a wannabe author from, "You ought to write a book about that" to getting words down on paper to share with family, friends and generations to come. —Robbie Dingeman, editor of HONOLULU Magazine and co-author of Honolulu Homicide: Murder and Mayhem in Paradise

Everyone has a story to tell. Darien Gee instills the confidence every new author needs to let the words fly. —Pamela Young, KITV news reporter and co-author of My Name is Makia: A Memoir of Kalaupapa

If you'd like the inside track on all the advice that we would love our clients to know before they get started on their manuscripts, it's all here in Writing the Hawai‘i Memoir: Advice and Exercises to Help You Tell Your Story by Darien Gee.

See for yourself how Writing the Hawai‘i Memoir can help you:

Excerpts

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Telling Your Story Matters

Insights and Advice

Kākau: Writing

• Quotables
• Chapter Summary

‘Āke‘ake‘a: Challenges & Roadblocks

• Quotables
• Chapter Summary

Downloadable Worksheets

Bento Box Memoir worksheets (for exercise instructions and an example of a completed Bento Box, consult Writing the Hawai‘i Memoir)

• Three-compartment Bento Box
• Four-compartment Bento Box
• Five-compartment Bento Box

Pua Petal Character Technique worksheet (for exercise instructions and an example of a completed flower, consult Writing the Hawai‘i Memoir)