Shay Kauwe

Shay Kauwe is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) author from Hawaiʻi. She grew up on the Homestead in Waimānalo but moved to Russia because she fell in love with a boy. They now live in Oʻahu. Kauwe holds an M.Ed in Education and was named an NCTE Early Educator of Color in 2021. In 2022, she was awarded an Empowering ʻŌiwi Leadership Award by the Hawaiian Council, for her work in storytelling and literacy.

Her debut urban fantasy The Killing Spell is the first traditionally published adult fantasy novel by a Hawaiian author.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Kauwe's reply:

I just finished The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, a historical horror set in the Jim Crow era, centered around the experiences of two siblings: Robbie, who’s been sentenced to a school for troubled boys, and his sister Gloria, who’s trying to get him out. The emotional intensity of this book left a lasting impact. I needed a little break from ghosts after this.

Lately, I've been drawn to Westerns, so The Great Work by Sheldon Costa was a peculiar romp through a wild American West, following a drunk alchemist and his teenage nephew as they hunt down a salamander whose blood may be the key to bringing the dead back to life. Dark and unsettling, it was a unique, new vision for the subgenre of “Weird Westerns.”

For non-fiction, I read, Who Gets to Be Indian? Ethnic Fraud, Disenrollment, and Other Difficult Conversations About Native American Identity by Dina Gilio-Whitaker which discusses the ethnic fraud of indigenous people using socio-historical analysis. Gilio-Whitaker’s deep dive on the slippery issue of “pretendians” is insightful and tracked down the historical roots of this modern phenomenon (California by the way).

And finally, Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World’s Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West by David Wolman and Julian Smith, which is the true story of the three Hawaiian paniolo (cowboys) who triumphed at the 1908 Cheyenne Rodeo. I picked this up expecting a dry historical account, but it surprised me. Fast-paced and written in a prose that jumps off the page, I thoroughly enjoyed this!

Visit Shay Kauwe's website.

Q&A with Shay Kauwe.

--Marshal Zeringue