Letter from the Editor

When I spoke with Joseph Han about the monthly reading series, Mixing Innovative Arts (M.I.A.), that he coordinates, he told me how writing often can be an isolating process. Han, a grad student at UH, writes prose and poetry. M.I.A. exists as something of a foil for that: It brings together writers and artists to share their work and become a part of each other’s process.

“It is really not about what I can accomplish, but what the people actively writing in Hawaii can accomplish — and the event is showing exactly that,” Han says.

We explore that concept throughout the issue: On Page 5, Anton Glamb covers an event where music producers, who also often work solo, take the limelight. Meanwhile, Jaimie Kim discusses her experience at Kapiolani Community College’s student-run restaurant on Page 14.

But back to M.I.A. … Han currently is working on a series of poems about his family’s experience as Korean-American immigrants, language barriers and his place in all of that. As a sort of preview for the next M.I.A. event, you can read a of sampling Han’s poetry in A Shared Space on Page 3.