Alan D. McNarie
Alan McNarie has been living on the Big Island since 1988, and has written hundreds of investigative and feature articles for Ka'u Landing, the Hawai’i Island Journal, Hana Hou, Ke Ola and other magazines and newspapers; he's also written two novels, including the recently published The Soul Keys, (Hilo: Larry Czerwonka Co., 2015), a satiric fantasy set, like his life, in Missouri, Hawaii and parts between. His first novel, Yeshua (New York: Pushcart Press, 1993), won the prestigious Editor's Book Award. McNarie holds a PhD in Modern Literature fom the University of Missouri—Columbia. Alan lives in Volcano with his love, Kersten Johnson, and their five feline companions.
Lee Michael Walczuk: the Man Behind the Mask
By Alan D McNarie It’s evening in Hilo, a couple of nights before Halloween. In the workshop space in the utility building behind East Hawai‘i Cultural Center, Lee Michael Walczuk is holding a special mask-making class. It’s not to make…
Dancing with Paint: Artist Kathleen Kam Choreographs the First of a Series of Downtown Hilo Murals
By Alan D. McNarie “I can paint faster than I can write. I have a nickname: “Dances with Paint,” jokes Kathleen Kam, as she works in a face of a lauhala weaver that she’s painting on the wall of downtown…
Slammin’ at the Gym: Local Youth Discover the Sport of Poetry
By Alan D. McNarie The bleachers of Pahoa High School Gym are packed with cheering, clapping students. The noise is deafening. But this isn’t a basketball game, or even a pep rally. It’s…a poetry reading? It’s Guinevere Balicoco’s turn at…
Joy of Chickens: Big Islanders Are Discovering a New Use for Their Back Yards
By Alan D. McNarie I think a lot of people don’t think that chickens have brains,” muses Jeannette Baysa, co-owner of the Hilo Coffee Mill. “But I think they do. We train them. They know their names. They come when…
More Than a Wooden Big-Top: Soaring High at S.P.A.C.E. in Puna
By Alan D. McNarie Juggler Graham Ellis, who founded Puna’s Hiccup Circus in 1984 to educate and inspire local kids through circus arts, longed for a home base. For nearly two decades, Ellis, his performer friends and students had performed…
Growing Our Own Fuel: Biodiesel Ventures Sprouting Up
By Alan D. McNarie Hawaii‘s lifestyle, for better or worse, depends on cars, trucks and buses. And cars, trucks and buses, unfortunately, depend on oil. Currently most of that oil comes to the island via ships from Alaska or Indonesia.…
