See you in Hilo

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Wordsworth the Haiku Teacher

Please drop by to say hello.

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A lecture on writing

I’ll be giving a lecture on writing at the Northern CA Publishers/Authors dinner meeting:

 

Topic: How to be almost famous and not so rich

1. How writers write, how readers read
2. Sell books without sales talk
3. Live in the readers’ world to improve one’s own craft and for national exposure

 

Date:  Thursday, Sept 12, 2019

Place: Denny’s

3529 Auburn Blvd ( Watt Ave and 1-80)

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Open to public, free.

 

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On Children’s Literature

Hi Folks,

Do let me know if you plan to join us…fhk@francesk.org

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Tea and Talk Story:Na Mea Hawaii

Please drop by to say hello, Oahu friends.

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Book Signing

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My favorite books read in 2016

When I’m reading in the middle of the day instead of doing chores or writing, I know I’m in a good book. Here are some of the titles not necessarily current:

A Little Life (read it twice)

Little Paris Bookshop (read it twice)

Hillbilly Elegy

Barkskin

Smilla’s Sense of Snow (read it twice)

Shakespeare Saved My Life

The Underground Railroad

The Bell Jar (had read this in my youth..enjoyed it differently this time).

Am rereading Magic Mountain by Mann because of a funny story attached to this book. I organized  a book club for residents in the condominium where I lived in Honolulu over a dozen years ago. I began with Winnie the Pooh and it was a great success with a math professor, a chemist, a fireman, a high school teacher, a marine biologist, a micro-biologist among others. Other children’s classics followed and discussions were heavy with philosophy and the intellect along with our inner child, until the micro-biologist began to complain and insisted on Magic Mountain for our following month’s selection. So we did. I read the book and appreciated the introduction to this book.  No one showed up at our next meeting except for the micro-biologist and that ended my book club.

Hey, anyone for the Magic Mountain?

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The Last Book

Once Upon a Time

 

Soon, soon,

I will be sitting alone

Under a tree perhaps,

Turning pages of a book.

The sound of paper, delicate

As hummingbird wings joins the rustling of leaves.

I take the top right corner of each page

Between my thumb and forefinger and savor

The sound now lost to man.

 

“Why are you weeping?” You will ask,

With Kindle in hand.

“Because this is the last book on earth.”

“A book?” You will ask. “What is that?”

“This” I say, and hand you my book.

“What is this?” you ask.

“That is a bookmark.”

I will then turn to the front of the book.

“This is an autograph signed by the  author.

She signed this to me in real ink eons ago

In a place  called a book store.”

 

Frances Kakugawa

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NYC with Charles Pellegrino

NYC  is about good friends. And only a dear friend would wear this to dinner three nights later. IF you have read Charlie’s most recent book: To Hell and Back: Last Train From Hiroshima, or his Titanic books, or my favorite science fiction Dust, among many others, you’ll have an idea how a cup of coffee can last  three delightful hours and more.  Thank you, Charlie. Now go write your autobiography.

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Open Letter to Stephen King

Dear Mr. King,

If you hate readers who sneak to the ending of your books first, you gotta hate me. I’ve echoed so many times that if a writer wants you to read the ending first, he or she would have placed it in the beginning or right in the middle.

But…but…it’s not due to my lack of respect for you as a writer, it’s because you have so artfully crafted your stories with such suspense and intrigue that I just had to skip to the ending.
I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t sleep, worried if the characters who became so real, would still be alive in the morning.

So what I’m saying is, it’s really your fault that with each of the books I’ve read these past three weeks, I had to cheat and find out the ending hundreds of pages prior to the end. Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers were spellbinding. As was Christine.
Your On Writing, a must read for everyone, made me feel we are now friends but will restrain from calling you Stephen.

Now, you have started on the next book, haven’t you, and you won’t be turning me into a Morris Bellamy, or would you?

Cheers Stephen…I mean Mr. King.

a devoted fan

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