Connections

“Small island.”

In Hawai‘i, we often say this when we meet people and discover their connections to other people we know. Our personal and work lives are intricately threaded through connections, and that’s how this month’s cover feature, Honolulu Stories, came about.

I first want to explain why we are publishing an essay collection. Readers often comment about what they like and don’t like about the magazine, mostly through emails and during conversations. Our editorial team appreciates this because we aim to include stories that our readers want to read. From such feedback, we know they particularly enjoy the personal essays featured in Afterthoughts, which rotates among writers sharing real-life experiences. I too love first-person accounts, like The New York Times’ Modern Love column, which became an Amazon Prime Video series.

Author Thomas Iannucci, who wrote an essay in this issue’s Honolulu Stories. Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino

So for this issue, we’re including personal stories about life in our city from five talented local writers—not necessarily the most celebrated, but emerging writers with poignant narratives and perspectives.

I didn’t have people specifically in mind, so I contacted Stephanie Han, whom I met when we both worked at Punahou School. (She taught high school English, and I was the editorial director.) Stephanie proved pivotal. A writer herself, she leads writing workshops, and when I told her about the feature’s premise, she quickly considered other potential contributors, then connected me to Timothy Dyke, Sujatha Raman and Deborah Harada. I Zoomed with each of them, and from our conversations, we brainstormed essays that now appear in this issue.

I wanted someone younger as well, so I reached out to Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, whose debut story collection, Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare, won critical praise and accolades, including our 2024 HONOLULU Book Award for Best Author Under 35. I know Megan’s dad through another friend, the older sister of a high school friend. Megan suggested I consider Thomas Iannucci, a rising 30-something writer from Kaua‘i whom she felt would be perfect. After talking to Thomas, I locked him in for an essay.

Now, I’m forever linked to these five writers, and so are others at HONOLULU who intersected with them, like our photographer Aaron K. Yoshino and creative director James Nakamura.

This is how life in Hawai‘i works. Live here long enough, or better yet, grow up here, and you’re part of a vast network of people that continuously expands. These bonds arise often and sometimes, they’re eerie in timing. A recent example: Our parent company recently added a multimedia production company to our fold—Eleven 17, led by Zak Noyle. I already knew Zak because while at Punahou, I published one of his surf photos in the school magazine. One morning after arriving at work, Zak looked up wide-eyed and told me he literally had just received a message from a mutual friend of ours, whom he didn’t realize I knew. “He just texted me about you,” Zak said.

Small island.

Every day, these types of connections emerge for all of us, and it’s actually how many stories in this magazine come together. All of our writers have their own wide web of relationships, and when we brainstorm ideas, we collectively bring forth all these people into our fold, and ultimately to each other.

I love Hawai‘i for this reason. When I was living in much larger cities, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, there were too many people to feel like I was a part of the fabric of life there. But here, I’m bonded to even strangers, knowing the likely one-or-two degrees of separation between us. It’s comforting living in a place where connections are so accessible and commonplace, creating a foundation of a close, intersected community.

Diane Seo is the editorial director of HONOLULU Magazine.