McMahon, Ching names winners of Elliot Cades Awards for Literature
Hawaii writers Tyler McMahon and Donald Carreira Ching have been named as this year’s winners of the Elliot Cades Awards for Literature, the most prestigious literary honor in Hawaii.
The nonprofit Hawaii Literary Arts Council (HLAC), which is charged with administering the awards program, selected McMahon as the recipient of the award for an established artist. Ching was named the winner of the award for an emerging artist.
Tyler McMahon is author of three novels and has received a number of awards. His novel “Dream of Another America” was the winner of the 2016 Gival Press Novel Award, which includes a cash prize and publication by the press. An earlier novel, “Kilometer 99” was winner of the 2015 Maria Thomas Fiction Award. McMahon is well known in the local literary community of Hawaii. He teaches English at Hawaii Pacific University, conducts the yearly Ko‘olau Writers Workshops, and the editor of the new online version of Hawaii Pacific Review.
Donald Carreira Ching is author of the novel “Between Sky and Sea: A Family’s Struggle,” published by Bamboo Ridge in 2015. His awards for writing include the Ian McMillan Writing Award for Fiction, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Halloween Fiction contest, and Best Writer in Pidgin 2012 in Honolulu Weekly’s Best of Honolulu. His short fiction appears in Bamboo Ridge, Hawaii Review, Rio Grande Review, and on the Aloha Shorts radio program. He teaches at Leeward Community College.
McMahon and Ching will receive their awards and read from their works at the 13th annual Hawaii Book and Music Festival May 5-6 at the Honolulu Hale-Fasi Municipal Building civic grounds.
The Cades Awards, given annually since 1988, were created by Charlotte and J. Russell Cades in memory of his brother Elliot, a teacher and lover of literature. The awards come with a substantial cash prize for the winners.
The Hawaii Literary Arts Council also announced this week that Patrice Marie Wilson and Michael Little will receive the second annual Loretta D. Petrie Award for outstanding service to Hawaii’s literary community.
Gross publishes book on Polynesian history
Inspired by his time living in Hawaii, Jeffrey L. Gross authored a detailed account of the long and rich history of the Polynesian people in “Waipi’o Valley: A Polynesian Journey from Eden to Eden.”
The book recounts the remarkable migrations of the Polynesians across a third of the circumference of the earth. Their amazing journey began from Kalana i Hau’ola, the biblical “Garden of Eden” located along the shore of the Persian Gulf, extended to the Indus River Valley of ancient Vedic India, to Egypt where some ancestors of the Polynesians were on the Israelite Exodus, through Island Southeast Asia and across the Pacific Ocean. They voyaged thousands of miles in double-hull canoes constructed from hollowed-out logs, built with Stone Age tools and navigated by the stars of the night sky.
The Polynesians resided on numerous tropical islands before reaching Waipi’o Valley, the last Polynesian “Garden of Eden.”
“While living in the Hawaiian Islands, I became interested in Polynesian history and traditional culture,” said Gross, in a press release. “As a result, I wrote this book to preserve Polynesian history.”
“Waipi’o Valley: A Polynesian Journey from Eden to Eden” is available at the Xlibris Online Bookstore, Amazon, and Barnes &Noble.