I stay doing one writing workshop with @jcchawaii on Saturday, May 30, 2026 from 10:00-11:30am. Da ting stay free ninety-nine but you gotta sign up at bit.ly/jcchpoetry
Honored for share da stage with supa-famous, big time writer @i__rojascontreras at da University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Dis wuz Ingrid’s first time eva shaka picture!! Lol. Mahalo to Kristiana Kahakauwila for moderating our talk stories. My aloha shirt stay made by @koamaluco . Grateful to our sponsors @uhmenglishdept@hihumanities@hawaii_sfca@hsplshigov da UH Mānoa Creative Writing Program and @nationalbookfoundation
Dis da write-up for da event. “Featuring National Book Award-honored author Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Hawai’i Poet Laureate Lee A. Tonouchi with Kristiana Kahakauwila. Through fiction, nonfiction, and poetry Ingrid Rojas Contreras (The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir, 2022 Nonfiction Finalist) and Lee A. Tonouchi (Significant Moments in da Life of Oriental Faddah and Son: One Hawai’i Okinawan Journal) expand the possibilities of language, place, and memory. Join Rojas Contreras and Tonouchi for readings and conversation on the relationship among family, migration, and art-making, from Columbia to Hawai’i. Moderated by Kristiana Kahakauwila, writer, educator, and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.”
Join us for our first-ever in-person NBF Presents programming in Hawai’i!
On Thursday, April 30 we’ll be on Oah’u for NBF Presents: The Language of Home, featuring National Book Award Finalist Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Hawaiʻi Poet Laureate Lee A. Tonouchi on the relationship among family, migration, and art-making.Moderated by Kristiana Kahakauwila, writer and Director of Creative Writing at UHM.
On Friday, May 1 we’ll be on Kaua’i for NBF Presents: What Haunts Us, where Rojas Contreras will be the special featured guest of the Kaua’i Writers Garden, for readings, writing, and community Q&A.
Presented in partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa Creative Writing Program & Department of English, Kaua’i Writers Garden, Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities, Hawaiʻi State Public Library System, Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, and Rice Street Business Association.
For more information, visit the link in bio. 🔗📚
Thur April 30, 6:00 PM at UH Mānoa (Kuykendall 101) - join us for a public reading and conversation with Hawaiʻi Poet Laureate Lee Tonouchi and National Book Award author Ingrid Rojas Contreras. These two wonderful authors will be reflecting on family, migration, and creating art in response. Books will be available for sale.
Visiting Hawaiʻi for the first time - Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, and now lives in California. Her memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds was a Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree earned the silver medal in First Fiction from the California Book Awards and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Register here —
/e/nbf-presents-the-language-of-home-tickets-1985323825004?aff=oddtdtcreator
Thanks to our partners the National Book Foundation, UH Mānoa Dept of English, UH Mānoa Creative Writing Program, SFCA, and the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System.
@pidginguerrilla@hawaii_sfca@hsplshigov@humfed #poetlaureate @nationalbookfoundation@i__rojascontreras
@dashophnl got poetry recs from Lee Tonouchi @pidginguerrilla , our new Poet Laureate of Hawai‘i—check out his full list at our link in bio.
#honolulumagazine #dashophnl #keepitkaimuki
Did you know there are more than a dozen flavors of Spam? The lineup has evolved since this post, but with @waikikispamjam coming up, we’ve brought back Hawai‘i Poet Laureate Lee Tonouchi’s @pidginguerrilla ranking of 15 Spam flavors—his No. 1 pick may surprise you.
Check out the full story at our link in bio.
#frolichawaii
‘Aiea resident @pidginguerrilla , who is known for championing Hawaiian Pidgin, was named the new Poet Laureate of Hawai‘i by the @hawaii_sfca , the @hihumanities and the @hsplshigov . Read more in Leeward Voice’s March 4 issue.
#midweekhawaii #hawaii #leewardvoice #leetonouchi #poetlaureateofhawaii
Mahalo to our 2026 Writer-in-Residence, Lee Tonouchi – Hawai’i’s newly announced Poet Laureate – for six inspiring days on campus. From Academy workshops to fourth grade classroom visits, Tonouchi empowered students to embrace their voice, honor their heritage and celebrate the richness of Pidgin and local storytelling. The residency culminated in “Talk Story with da Pidgin Guerilla” at Thurston Memorial Chapel, bringing our community together for an evening of fun authentic stories and shared connection.
Always On.
That's what comes to mind when #HawaiiReviewofBooks editor Don Wallace hears the name Lee Tonouchi. Author, playwright, linguist, anthologist, cultural champion, raconteur, man-who-always-shows-up—these are just a few of the many Lee Tonouchis a person may encounter.
As it happens, for more than a year over here at THROB we've been slowly puzzling out a Pidgin Package with Lee. Now called our Pidgin Pak, it grew out of reading Tonouchi's 2009 academic paper, written in #Pidgin about Pidgin and Local Hip-Hop, that he presented at a conference. Lee took on the conundrum of conflicting social dialects, or creoles, or whatever is your nom de jour, that should be friends but weren't.
The paper was presented but never published, which seemed a shame. Our editorial challenge was how to find a frame or context for publishing a single academic paper from 2009.
Instead, the game-changer arrived in the form of a rising Pidgin star—Kaua‘i's thomas iannucci, a three-time Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award-winner as a rapper and #hiphop artist who had also recently evolved into a serious writer of fiction and #creativenonfiction. In iannucci Tonouchi has his counterpart, a fellow soul steeped in creole, one possessed of the same revolutionary spirit.
In this #PidginPak you'll find Tonouchi's fabled lost paper, "Hidden Pidgin," then iannucci's answering essay "On Shame, Or, Hakum No More So Much Pidgin in Hawaii Hip Hop?" Then comes an iannucci short story, "Hanapepe, 1924," which places us at the aftermath of the massacre of plantation workers and labor organizers.
P.S. The Pidgin in the paper and these stories is each author's own. We did no copyediting and certainly no spellchecking. Still, for any errors or perceived inaccuracies in the Pidgin Pak you may, in the now-immortal words of iannucci, "get mad at don." That goes for the headline "Da Pidgin Guccis."
So come and get your Pidgin Pak. While our prose and design may be zippy, Zippy's we ain't. (For one thing, zero calories—always our promise to you, our readers.)
This and more! Always on: hawaiireviewofbooks.com
I AM CHALLENGING MY FELLOW HAWAII WRITERS:
i believe in Pidgin. as not jus slang or one dialect. as not broken english n we not stupid fo talk um...or write um. as its own unique language, one dat we should be proud of n celebrate, but one dat, due to generations of internalized stigma n da flattening of language + culture in da social media age, we ste in real danger of losing. on dat note, today is my pleasure fo announce dat da Hawaaii Review of Books jus had publish one projeck me n Lee Tonouchi n Don Wallace been working on fo da last couple years: “Da Pidgin Pak,” one series of essays n one short story about Hawaii Hip Hop, Local Culture, n Pidgin itself. being able fo write n work wit some of my literary inspirations is one huge honor, but as much mo mayjah to me fo be able to exchange ideas n unpack big kine concepts in Pidgin lidat. n only jus scratching da surface us, or me at least, cuz longgg time Lee been doing dis kine already. but yeah. if you one writer in Hawaii, i like challenge you fo push yoself, fo try tackle da kine big issues or “literary” kine writing, all in Pidgin. garantee can handle wateva you might try write! we gotta preserve dis language bumbai we goin lose um, n in da process i tink so we goin lose someting core to who we are. plenny authors n poets before us had do um n plenny guys continue to. but fo some reason i ste feeling choke urgency, cuz i tink so we really might can lose Pidgin if we not careful. so i like see us all give um a try! try show da world wat Pidgin can do in da hands of da best writers Hawaii get fo offer! n show Locals as ok fo write in Pidgin not jus talk um! dis pak is us goin first. you guys is up next!
I’m here to support my friend Lee!
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Lee Tonouchi has been selected as the new Poet Laureate of Hawaii by the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Hawaii Council for the Humanities, and the Hawaii State Public Library System FOLLOW HIM @pidginguerrilla #congratulations
