Jay Hartwell sits in front of the jungle gym he built for his children during the process of writing his book, a project that was supposed to take a year but took eight years to complete.
By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
Jay Hartwell sits in front of the jungle gym he built for his children during the process of writing his book, a project that was supposed to take a year but took eight years to complete.
By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
It wasn't easy, and even though he doesn't think the book - "Na Mamo: Hawaiian People Today" - will make him lots of money, he wouldn't trade those eight years away.
His book profiles Hawaiians who practice and perpetuate Hawaiian traditions while living in a Western world. The profiles include those of a healer, kapa artisan, outrigger canoe coach and taro planter.
Surrounded by computer, fax and phone equipment and undulating sheafs of paper at his Wailupe home, Hartwell, 41, a Kailua High graduate and former reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser, described the process of writing the book and the life changes that experience brought.
"When I originally left the newspaper in 1988 I had intended to leave for a year," he said. "I thought, like any good journalist, I could get this book done in a year. I had no idea it would take eight years."
Hartwell's commitment to write "Na Mamo" reflects that he, himself, himself, is a son of a man who was a published author and of parents who were newspaper publishers. But it was frustration and a growing knowledge that motivated him.
"As the economy shrank, the space for (news) stories shrank. And, at the same time as I was learning more and more about Hawaiian culture through the stories I was doing for the newspaper, I realized that more needed to be told and that a lot of people didn't know how the Hawaiian culture lived - and that this book might be a vehicle to allow people to learn about the culture."
Hartwell started the book with a two-year fellowship. He also married, and became a father twice and a house husband - "That trade slowed things down." Wife Cindy returned to graduate school, then took two nursing jobs.
He wedged book interviews and transcribing between family and jobs with former City Council chair Gary Gill.
During this time, Hartwell sought balance, surfing for three hours Sundays, going to yoga twice weekly, building a jungle gym for his children, now 7 and 4. He came to realize that the process is the goal.
jay Hartwell in his home office amid the documents
and photos that were part of his inspiration.
By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
"All the people that I've worked with," he added, "whether they were involved in the photography, the design, the marketing, the web page, the people who were in the stories themselves - they were all excellent people, regardless of their culture. Working with them has been such a great experience, that I wouldn't trade it for anything I did at the newspaper. And so, that process has been a great process and to me is more important than the book itself. I'm very happy with the way the book has come out, but the process itself is a great one for me."
Running hands through his hair, he acknowledged, "The book is not going to make money. There's a bank loan that needs to be paid off, but that's not important to me. This is a not-for-profit book ... The most important thing is that the people in the book are happy with how their story has been shared, and that it deepens people's understandings of how the culture is lived; so there is more understanding among all people here."
Book writing, Hartwell concluded, is a learning and growing experience that "requires perseverance, that's the key."
"Once I make a commitment to something, I try to see it through. The fact that it took eight years is just happenstance; the commitment never changed.
"I think it's been important for me to discover that," he paused at length, "if you have a talent or dream, to follow it - if you can - to make it happen."
Nov. 2: 11 a.m. to noon, Honolulu Book Shops Kailua; 1 to 2 p.m., Honolulu Book Shops Ala Moana