Hello ~ Aloha

 Welcome to my island home, where I live and write nourished by natural beauty, earth’s healing qualities and friendly people. I hope to take you on a reading and travel tale adventure. 

Wherever I go or have gone on interior or exterior explorations, know that Kaua`i, my chosen home, will always draw me back like a magnet to rest, replenish, reminisce.

I’m Dawn, a naturalized American writer-poet living on Kaua`i. Gemini and Year of the Dragon. India-born. British India mix. Deserted daughter. Mother of three by 22 (four, by 32). Wordsmith. Kiss-and-promise gardener.

Bookworm / traveler. Hermit crab / nomad. High on the smell of ink on paper, plumeria, night-blooming jasmine. Hooked on music and hula, curries, wicked dark licorice. 

I’m the author of the memoirs and travel tales, Jackals’ Wedding, A Childhood in British India and Burma Banyan, A Daughter’s Odyssey, as well as original chants and cultural information presented in Behold Kaua`i, Modern Days ~ Ancient Ways. You can find those books here. My books also may be found through global booksellers, in libraries and schools of three continents and numerous island nations. A professor from Portugal wrote me a fan letter telling how he chose Jackals’ Wedding as a text for his course on the Great Diaspora following World War II. Expats have written to help solve the mystery of my (still) missing father or recount tales of their India/Burma wartime experiences and/or “lost” relatives. Still others have sent me favorite books that relate to my history and the pursuits of my adventurous, quixotic forebears.

Stashing my journals, I launched my writing career once my children were mostly grown, freelancing under a previous married surname. Following a move from Ohio to Colorado, I landed a plum (free tickets!) as an entertainment reviewer in the Denver-Boulder area and took on a position as poetry editor and layout person for a family-run publishing enterprise. Some years later on Kaua`i, my husband “Dee”-for-Delano, a biology teacher, freed me from various survival jobs to support my dream of authoring a book based on memory snapshots I’d penned that came to life and wove their way into the story, Jackals’ Wedding. Dee also encouraged me in the founding of TropicBird Press.

Dee and I live on the Garden Island of Kaua`i in the Hawaiian Islands at the base of The Queen’s Throne formation of Nounou Mountain (popularly called The Sleeping Giant). We enjoy watching white-tailed tropicbirds sail daily on the updrafts near their cliff-hung nesting sites. We sponsored a contest for artwork for the TropicBird Press colophon, my trademark which is imprinted upon TropicBird Press publications.

 “Approaching Nounou Mountain,” my poem about our mountain area submitted to the James A. Vaughan Poetry Award-2003 from Hawaii Pacific University garnered a first place. It became the seed poem for Behold Kaua`i. This book was nominated for content and design in the Hawaii Book Publisher’s Assoc. Ka Palapala-Po`okela Awards of 2006 and was up for the popular prize, also–an affirming nibble for a small bird. It’s my hope that Burma Banyan, the result of a 15-year odyssey, and the upcoming “Green Flash” column collection will receive nominations in the next call for awards.