The Speakers

Tommy Orange

Shay Kauwe

Alicia Upano

D. Keali'i MacKenzie

Anjoli Roy, Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng,

Tommy Orange

Keynote

A Pulitzer Prize Finalist and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship "Genius" Grant, Tommy Orange is the author of the novels There There and Wandering Stars (Vintage 2019 and 2025, respectively). He is a graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts and an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.

Tommy will be giving the Keynote at this year's conference.

Shay Kauwe

Workshop: Writing a Spell

Shay Kauwe is an author of speculative fiction from Hawaiʻi. Shay holds an M.Ed in Education and was named an NCTE Early Educator of Color in 2021, an E OLA recipient by the Hawaiian Council in 2022, and Author Under 35 by Honolulu Magazine in 2026. Her debut urban fantasy The Killing Spell (Saga/Solaris Books) is the first traditionally published adult fantasy novel by a Native Hawaiian.

Alicia Upano

Workshop: Shape Your Story

Alicia Upano, born and raised in Hawaiʻi, is the recipient of the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award Hawai‘i, the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and a Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Scholarship. Her debut novel, Everything to the Sea (William Morrow/HarperCollins) was named the Book of the Year in the 2026 Honolulu Book Awards.

D. Keali'i MacKenzie

Workshop: From Page to Stage

D. Kealiʻi MacKenzie is a queer, Native Hawaiian poet. He is the author of At the Rise of Makaliʻi (Cuttlefish Books, forthcoming 2026), The Mana of Salt (Backbone Press 2023), winner of the 2023 Backbone Press Chapbook Contest, and From Hunger to Prayer (Silverneedle Press 2018). A past member of the Worcester Poetry Slam Team, Keali'i lives in Kailua, on the island of Oahu.

Anjoli Roy, Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng,

& Dora Jiang

Workshop: Podcasting 101

Anjoli Roy and Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng are co-hosts of the podcast IT'S LIT WITH PHDJ, which celebrates its 10th Anniversary this November. In addition to co-hosting a podcast, Roy is the author of two chapbooks: Enter the Navel: For the Love of Creative Nonfiction and Grandpa Was a Skindiver: 20 Directives for a Wet-Cat Granddaughter while Ng is a multidimensial creative, award-winning slam poet, and visual artist. Dora Jiang is the host of the 'Imi Mo'olelo Podcast. Both podcasts feature interviews with local and national literary figures.

Amanda Huynh

Workshop: How to Submit to Literary Journals

Amanda Huynh is a Xicana writer and educator from Texas. She is the author Where My Umbilical is Buried (Sundress Publications 2023). She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net. She serves as the Managing Editor of Mānoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing.

Lyn Liao Butler

Workshop: Learn to Query Literary Agents

Lyn Liao Butler is a Taiwanese American author of upmarket fiction, thrillers, and rom-coms. Two of her books were instant Amazon bestsellers and her second book Red Thread of Fate was a finalist in the WFWA Star Awards for 2023. She divides her time between New York and Kauai.

Chandanie Somwaru

Workshop: Poetry & Place

Chandanie Somwaru was born and raised in Queens, New York to a Guyanese father and a Trinidadian mother. She received her MFA at Queens College in poetry and is currently a PhD student at the University of Hawai’i. Her first book-length collection of poetry Rude Gyal will be published by Noemi Press.

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