Last night, we had the launch for my new book, Kapoho, at the Native Books store at Ward Warehouse. (I’m so sorry; I told some of you it was at Ward Center!) The store set us up in an alcove outside which they dressed up with festive poinsettias and Hawaiianprint tablecloths on the refreshments table.
I read excerpts from “The Enemy Wore My Face” and “Once There Was a Kapoho.” My publisher, Watermark Publishing, brought punch and pupus for everyone to enjoy after the reading.
The gentleman in the picture to the right was born in Kapoho, too! His son saw my book at the store on Tuesday, bought it and brought his dad back to meet me. He’s in his nineties and we both recognized each other’s family name; when I was a girl we used to swim on his family’s property at Pohoiki Beach.
Yesterday, Wayne Harada also wrote a review on his blog for the Star*Advertiser:Excerpts:
[Frances] was always primarily a poet at heart but a storyteller in general, and she lived through tough times, enduring some of the fallout scars of being of Japanese ancestry, in a post World War II era when local Japanese often were maligned because of the bombs that fell at Pearl Harbor. Over the years, she has evolved as a savvy ambassador of caregiving, conducting workshops for those burdened with the task of caring for a loved one, and writing about her use of poetry to ease the pangs of the grips of Alzheimer’s.
You can read the rest of Wayne’s blog here.
I have one more signing on Oahu this weekend: Saturday, December 10, at Barnes & Noble at Kahala Mall, from 11am – noon. I also have several more events in Hilo next weekend. Read my previous blog post for all the dates, times and locations. I’m even conducting a writing workshop for people who want to write their own memoirs!
And here are more photos from last night’s reading and book signing:
Frances Kakugawa's Blog 