Pacific Islanders in Publishing
Polynesia
Polynesians are people who are indigenous to any of the island groups of ʻUvea, American Sāmoa, Aotearoa, the Cook Islands, Futuna, Hawaiʻi, Māʻohi Nui, Niue, Rapa Nui, Sāmoa, Tokelau, Tonga, and Tuvalu.
Adult Fiction
Tīhema Baker
Māori
(he/him)
Tīhema (Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira) is a writer and policy advisor from Ōtaki. He has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, for which he wrote his novel Turncoat. In 2013, he won the Best Short Story written in te reo Māori at the Pikihuia Awards of Māori Writers.
Michael Bennett
Māori
(he/him)
Michael Bennett (Ngati Pikiao, Ngati Whakaue) is an award-winning New Zealand screenwriter and author. In 2019 his graphic novel Helen and the Go-Go Ninjas, a collaboration with acclaimed artist Ant Sang, received an international White Raven Award. His lastest novel, Better the Blood, was a Ockham NZ Book Awards 2023 Finalist.
Melissa Llanes Brownlee
Hawaiian
(she/her)
Born and raised in Hawai’i, Melissa Llanes Brownlee has had flash fiction in SmokeLong Quarterly, Superstition Review, NFFR, JMWW, Milk Candy Review, trampset, Best Small Fictions 2021, and Best Microfiction 2022, among others. She is the author of two fiction collections, Hard Skin (Juventud Press) and Kahi and Lua (Alien Buddha Press).
Cassie Hart
Māori
(she/her)
Cassie Hart (Kāi Tahu) is a writer of speculative fiction. Her short stories have appeared in several award-winning anthologies. She has self-published over ten novels and novellas under her writing names of Nova Blake and JC Hart. Her SFF novel Butcherbird was published by Huia in 2021.
Jade Kake
Māori
(she/her)
Jade is an architectural designer based in Whangārei. She writes fiction and non-fiction, and received the Copyright Licensing New Zealand and New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa Writers’ Award in 2021. Her last novel, Checkerboard Hill, was published in 2023.
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto is a Japanese and Native Hawaiian writer from Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. Her fiction has been featured in Granta, Conjunctions, Joyland, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the Keene Prize for Literature and has received support from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is represented by Iwalani Kim.
Shay Kauwe
Hawaiian
(she/her)
Shay Kauwe (Zykova) is a Native Hawaiian urban fantasy author. She is represented by Jon Cobb at HG Literary. Her forthcoming book In Language There is Death releases from Saga Press in spring 2025.
Keala Kendall
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Keala Kendall is a Kanaka Maoli writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Her debut novel, How Far I'll Go, a twist on Disney's Moana for the Twisted Tales series, will come out in 2025. She is represented by Jennifer March Soloway.
Rebecca K. Reilly
Māori
(she/her)
Rebecca (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Wai) is the author of Greta and Valdin (2021), winner of the 2021 Hubert Church Prize for Best First Book at the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, published in the UK & US in 2024. Rebecca is represented by Martha Perotto-Wills at The Bent Agency.
Mariah Rigg
Samoan
(she/her)
Mariah is a Samoan-Haole who was born and raised on the island of Oʻahu. In 2023, Mariah's chapbook, All Hat, No Cattle, was published as part of the Inch series (Bull City Press). She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and is a PhD candidate at the University of Tennessee. She’s represented by Amy Bishop-Wycisk at Trellis Literary Management. Her short story collection, Extinction Capital of the World, will be published by Ecco (2025).
Sascha Stronach
Kiritea Māori
(she/her)
Sascha Stronach is a Māori author from the Kai Tahu iwi and Kati Huirapa Runaka Ki Puketeraki hapu. She is based in Wellington, New Zealand, and has also spent time in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, which have all inspired parts of the fictional worlds she creates. A former tech writer, she first broke out into speculative fiction by experimenting with the short form. The Dawnhounds, her debut novel, won the Sir Julius Vogel Award at Worldcon 78.
Célestine Vaite
Mā'ohi
(she/her)
Célestine Vaite is a Tahitian award-winning novelist, published in seventeen countries and translated in eight languages. She's the author of the best-selling Materena Mahi series, and has recently contributed to the opera Ihitai 'Avei'a – Star Navigator composed by Tim Finn.
Makana Yamamoto
Kanaka Maoli
(they/them)
Makana Yamamoto was born on the island of Maui. Splitting their time between the Mainland and Hawaiʻi, Makana grew up on beaches and in snowbanks. They're the author of the forthcoming adult sci-fi Hammajang Luck (Gollancz, Jan 2025). They're represented by Keir Alekseii.
Children's Fiction
Kaua Māhoe Adams
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Kaua Māhoe Adams is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) author originally from Seattle, Washington. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Washington and is currently earning her Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She writes stories about Kanaka kids, looking for a way home. Kaua lives in sunny southern California on a bird sanctuary, with her partner and their very, very lazy dog, Guava. She is represented by Sara Crowe at Sara Crowe Literary. Her YA debut novel in verse, AN EXPANSE OF BLUE, releases summer 2026 (Heartdrum).
Manuia Heinrich
Mā'ohi
(she/her)
Manuia Heinrich is a Mā'ohi writer of Young Adult fiction and researcher with a PhD in Pacific Studies from Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. She lives in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is represented by Marin Takikawa of the Friedrich Agency.
Kumu Hina
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu (Kumu Hina) is a Native Hawaiian teacher, cultural practitioner, and community leader. She was previously a founding member of Kulia Na Mamo, a community organization established to improve the quality of life for māhū wahine (transgender women), and Cultural Director at a public charter school dedicated to using native Hawaiian culture, history, and education as tools for developing and empowering the next generation of warrior scholars.
Mark Kanemura
Samoan
(he/him)
Mark Kanemura was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he first discovered his love for dance and theater. He now lives in Los Angeles, California where he works as a dancer, teacher, and entertainer. He has appeared as a contestant and choreographer on FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance and has danced and toured the world with artists like Carly Rae Jepsen, Katy Perry, Janet Jackson, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga.
Keala Kendall
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Keala Kendall is a Kanaka Maoli writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Her YA debut novel, How Far I'll Go, a twist on Disney's Moana, will come out in 2025. She is represented by Jennifer March Soloway.
Leilani Lamb
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Leilani Lamb writes young adult fiction across genres about myths, monsters, and monstrous ambition. Her work centers and celebrates her lived experience as a Native Hawaiian and Asian American cat lady. She is a 2023 Lambda Literary Fellow for Emerging LGBTQ+ Voices, a 2022 Writers’ League of Texas Fellow, and she works as a mental health advocate based in Austin. She is represented by Hannah Andrade.
Kalena Makanui
Hawaiian
(she/her)
Kalena Makanui is a Kānaka Maoli writer from Hawaiʻi Island. She loves storytelling in all forms, especially theater and anything with a hint of magic. She is represented by Katie Gisondi and Laura Dail.
Dahlia Malaeulu
Sāmoan
(she/her)
Dahlia Malaeulu is an award-winning author and publisher of Mila’s Books. A Samoan New Zealander with connections to the Samoan villages of Vaivase tai and Sinamoga, Dahlia is a passionate educator at heart driven by the power of Pasifika stories and enabling tamaiti to succeed as themselves. Dahlia also regularly presents at educational conferences, visits schools across Aotearoa, was the recipient of the Creative New Zealand Pasifika Emerging Pacific Artist Award (2022), the NZ Emerging Publisher Award (2023) and serves on the Te Pou Muramura Read New Zealand board.
Selina Tusitala Marsh
Samoan/Tuvalua
(she/her)
Poet and scholar Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tavaluan, English, Scottish, and French descent. She was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and was the first Pacific Islander to earn a PhD in English from the University of Auckland. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Fast Talking PI (2009), and of the children's illustrated series Mophead.
Steph Matuku
Māori
(she/her)
Steph Matuku (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama, Te Atiawa) is a freelance writer from Taranaki. She enjoys writing stories for young people, and her work has appeared on the page, stage and screen. Whetū Toa and the Magician was a finalist at the 2019 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Malia Maunakea
Hawaiian
(she/her)
Malia Maunakea is a Hawaiian writer who grew up in the rainforest on the Big Island before moving to a valley on O’ahu in seventh grade. She relocated to the continent for college, and when she isn’t writing can be found roaming the Colorado Rocky Mountains with her husband, their two children, and a rescue mutt named Peggy. She writes non-fiction and fiction.
Kealani Netane
Samoan/Hawaiian
(she/her)
Kealani Netane is a Native Hawaiian and Samoan author who was raised on the leeward side of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi where she currently resides. She writes picture books and is the author of Tala Learns to Siva illustrated by Dung Ho (Scholastic, summer 2024). She is represented by Ellen Pauley Goff.
Catherine Payne
CHamoru/Hawaiian
(she/her)
Catherine Payne has been a storyteller all her life. After earning master's degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, she worked as a journalist in Michigan and Virginia. Several years later, she returned to her native Guam, where she works as an English instructor and tutor. Linktree
John Payne II
CHamoru/Hawaiian
(he/him)
When John Payne discovered superhero comic books, they sparked in him a lifelong and expansive love of reading. This passion led to an interest in speech and language, which John formally pursued at San Jose State University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He now works with kids as a speech clinician in Guam, and enjoys exercising, baking healthy desserts, and watching movies based on books.
Terisa Siagatonu
Sāmoan
(she/they)
Terisa Siagatonu is an award-winning poet, teaching artist, mental health educator, and community leader born and rooted in the Bay Area. Terisa is represented by Wendi Gu.
Mahani Teave
Rapa Nui
(she/her)
Rapa Nui award-winning pianist and humanitarian Mahani Teave is a pioneering artist who bridges the creative world with education and environmental activism. She is one of the founders of Toki Rapa Nui, a nonprofit dedicated to the island's ecological and cultural preservation.
Ilima Todd
Hawaiian
(she/her)
Ilima Todd was born and raised on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii, and now lives in the Southwest with her husband and four children. She has a degree in physics and was an avid reader before turning to writing full time. Her picture book Our Sacred Mountain, illustrated by Shar Tui'asoa is scheduled for winter 2024 (HarperCollins). She is represented by Lane Heymont.
Shar Tui'asoa
Tongan
(she/her)
Shar Tuiasoa is a Polynesian artist from the island of O’ahu, in the town of Kailua, Hawai’i, where she was born and raised. When she is not in the ocean, enjoying the vibrant culture of her home, Shar spends her time imagining and creating for her illustration business, Punky Aloha Studio.
Célestine Vaite
Mā'ohi
(she/her)
Célestine Vaite is a Tahitian award-winning novelist, published in seventeen countries and translated in eight languages. She's the author of the best-selling Materena Mahi series, and has recently contributed to the opera Ihitai 'Avei'a – Star Navigator composed by Tim Finn.
Nikki Van De Car
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Nikki is the author of over a dozen nonfiction books on crafting and magic, including the bestselling Practical Magic and, most recently, Shadow Magic. She is also the author of the forthcoming YA novel The Skin of the Ocean, a coming-of-age novel set on the Big Island of Hawai'i, about indigenous identity, community, and the magic that lies beneath.
Comic Books
Michel Mulipola
Sāmoan
(he/him)
Michel Mulipola is a Samoan comic book artist and writer from Auckland, NZ. He has illustrated work for BOOM! Studios' line of WWE comics, various anthologies, and is currently working on the U.S. comic book, Headlocked: The Last Territory, and is a Story Artist for Walt Disney Animation studios on an upcoming project.
Carl Shinyama
Kanaka Maoli
(he/him)
Carl is a comic book editor from Maui with multiple independent comics to his name, including an upcoming graphic novel picked up by the United Nations.
Anthology Editors
C. M. Kaliko Baker
Kanaka Maoli
(he/him)
C. M. Kaliko Baker has been a Kumu 'Ōlelo Hawai'i in Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawai'i since 1996 and is a current Assistant Professor. His research and scholarly efforts primarily focuses on Hawaiian, particularly discourse grammar, traditional Hawaiian narratives, and the revitalization of Hawaiian. He co-authors Hawaiian-medium plays with Tammy Haili'ōpua Baker and also serves as dramaturge. Currently, he is the president of a nonprofit organization, Halele'a Arts Foundation, which strives to promote Hawaiian-medium theatrical and other media projects.
Tammy Haili'opua Baker
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Originally from Kapa‘a, Kaua‘i, playwright/director Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where she is the director of the MFA programs in Playwriting and Hawaiian Theatre.
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Sisilia Eteuati
Samoan
(she/her)
Writer and lawyer Sisilia Eteuati is the co-editor of Vā - Stories by Women of the Moana, a collection of 38 short fictional stories by Pacific women authors. Sisilia is the co-founder of Tatou Publishing and has served as lawyer in Samoa, Australia and Aotearoa and had writing published across the Pacific.
Rebecca H. Hogue
Hawaiian
(she/they)
Rebecca H. Hogue writes and teaches about empire, militarization, and the environment in the Pacific Islands and Oceania. She earned her PhD in English with a Designated Emphasis in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, where she was a Mellon/ACLS fellow. She is currently working on a book manuscript, "Nuclear Archipelagos," on women's anti-nuclear arts and literatures of the Pacific, and is the co-editor, along with Craig Santos Perez, of a forthcoming anthology on Environmental Relations in the Pacific Islands (under contract with University of Washington Press).
Poetry
Nicola "Nicky" Andrews
Māori
(ia/she/they)
Nicola Andrews (Ngāti Paoa, Pākehā) is a poet and writer. Their poetry micro-chap Sentimental Value will be published as part of the 2023 Ghost City Press Summer Series, and their debut chapbook Māori Maid Difficult is forthcoming with Tram Editions.
Selina Tusitala Marsh
Samoan/Tuvalua
(she/her)
Poet and scholar Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tavaluan, English, Scottish, and French descent. She was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and was the first Pacific Islander to earn a PhD in English from the University of Auckland. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Fast Talking PI (2009), and of the children's illustrated series Mophead.
Terisa Siagatonu
Sāmoan
(she/they)
Terisa Siagatonu is an award-winning poet, teaching artist, mental health educator, and community leader born and rooted in the Bay Area.
Audrey Brown-Pereira
Cook Island/Samoan
(she/her)
Audrey Brown-Pereira is a poet of Cook Island, Māori, and Samoan descent. Her work has appeared in journals such as Mauri Ola and Trout. Brown-Pereira’s collections of poetry include Threads of Tivaevae: Kaleidoscope of Kolours (2002), a collaborative work with Veronica Vaevae and Catherine George; passages in between i(s)lands (2014); and a - wake - (e)nd with Sauo'fi Press (2023).
Leora Kava
Tongan
(she/her)
Leora Kava is a hafekasi poet of mixed Tongan and pālangi descent. She is an assistant professor of critical Pacific Islands and Oceania studies at San Francisco State University.
Alice Te Punga Somerville
Māori
(she/her)
Alice is a Māori scholar and poet. Her monograph Once Were Pacific: Maori Connections to Oceania won Best First Book 2012 from the Native American & Indigenous Studies Association. Her poetry collection Always Italicise is the 2023 Winner Ockham Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry.
Memoir
Witi Ihimaera
Māori
(he/him)
Witi Ihimaera is novelist, short story writer, and anthologist born in Gisborne. He is the first Māori writer to have published a book of short stories and a novel. His masterpiece, The Whale Rider, has become an internationally successful feature film.
Alenato Pa'agalua
Wallisian and Futunian
(he/him)
Born in 1947 in Wallis, Alenato Pa'agalua, grew up in Wallis then in Futuna before settling in New Caledonia. He participated in maintaining customs in the Wallisian and Futunian community rooted in New Caledonia. His autobiography is entitled Alenato Pa’agalua Wallisien, Futunien, Néo-Caledonien et Falani (français): Autobiographie d’un Océanien de Nouvelle-Calédonie (Edilivre, 2022).
Vitale Lafaele
Samoan
(he/him)
Vitale Lafaele served in the New Zealand Army for seven years and the Police for 30. He rose through the ranks to command the Northern Region Armed Offenders and Special Tactics Group where he led successful tactical squads in some of the most nationally significant events in New Zealand's history. A Canoe Before the Wind is his memoir.
Stan Walker
Māori
(he/him)
Stan Walker is an Australian-born Māori singer, actor, and television personality. In 2009, Walker was the winner of the seventh season of Australian Idol. Over the past decade Walker has become one of Aotearoa's most respected figures, and continues to devote much of his life to his family, his people, and to maoritanga.
Nonfiction and Essays
Maile Arvin
Hawaiian
(she/her)
Maile is a Native Hawaiian feminist scholar who works on issues of race, gender, science and colonialism in Hawai‘i and the broader Pacific. She earned her PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego. Arvin’s first book, Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania, was published with Duke University Press in 2019. In that book, she analyzes the nineteenth and early twentieth century history of social scientists declaring Polynesians “almost white.”
Kamanamaikalani Beamer
Kanaka Maoli
(he/him)
Dr. Kamanamaikalani Beamer is a professor at the Center for Hawaiian Studies in the Hui 'Āina Momona Program at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a joint appointment in the Richardson School of Law and the Hawai'inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge. His research on governance, land tenure, and Hawaiian resource management, as well as his prior work as the director of ‘Āina-Based Education at Kamehameha Schools, prepared him for his continuing service as a director of Stanford University’s First Nations Futures Institute, a resource management development program for indigenous leaders developed by Stanford, Kamehameha Schools, and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu in New Zealand.
Emalani Case
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Emalani Case is a Kānaka Maoli author, poet, and lecturer in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. In Everything Ancient Was Once New, Case explores Indigenous persistence through the concept of Kahiki, a term that is at once both an ancestral homeland for Kānaka Maoli (Hawaiians) and the knowledge that there is life to be found beyond Hawaiʻi’s shores.
Kainoa Daines
Hawaiian
(he/him)
Kainoa Daines was born and raised in Honolulu. He is the senior director of brand for the Hawai‘i Visitors & Convention Bureau, an event organizer, the son of a journalist, a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools, and a student of Loea Hula Kaha‘i Topolinski. He is also a proud member of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, the Hawaiian Civic Club of Honolulu and a Calabash Cousin with the Daughters of Hawai‘i.
Meleana Estes
Hawaiian
(she/her)
Meleana Estes is a stylist and lei expert, who learned to make lei from her Native Hawaiian grandmother. After launching her career in fashion design in New York, Meleana moved back to Hawai'i and today her lei are in demand for fashion shows, photo shoots, workshops, and are inspiring lei markers and flower shops.
Sean Mallon
Sāmoan
(he/him)
Sean Mallon, of Sāmoan (Mulivai, Safata) and Irish descent, is Senior Curator Pacific Cultures at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. He is a co-author of Tangata o le Moana: The story of New Zealand and the people of the Pacific (2012) and Art in Oceania: A new history (2012).
Malia Maunakea
Hawaiian
(she/her)
Malia Maunakea is a Hawaiian writer who grew up in the rainforest on the Big Island before moving to a valley on O’ahu in seventh grade. She relocated to the continent for college, and when she isn’t writing can be found roaming the Colorado Rocky Mountains with her husband, their two children, and a rescue mutt named Peggy. She writes non-fiction and fiction.
Nikki Van De Car
Kanaka Maoli
(she/her)
Nikki is the author of over a dozen nonfiction books on crafting and magic, including the bestselling Practical Magic and, most recently, Shadow Magic. She is also the author of the forthcoming YA novel The Skin of the Ocean, a coming-of-age novel set on the Big Island of Hawai'i, about indigenous identity, community, and the magic that lies beneath.