Writers recall their
By Burl Burlingame
‘small-kid times’
Star-BulletinIt's like a gift for some, for others, a kind of miracle -- suddenly, they realize they have a voice. Even more startling is the discovery that the silence was self-imposed.
This is the effect the literary journal Bamboo Ridge had on local writers, and the accent is on "local." A new anthology of works from the journal is even called "Growing Up Local," and is being published this week.
As editor Bill Teter wrote in an afterward, "To help us all to see that more language, more voices, more ways to speak and sing and be heard, is always better than fewer."
The afterward also contains brief sketches of the authors, decorated with small-kid-time pictures. Editor Darrell H.Y. Lum refers to the standard Hawaiian getting-to-know-you line of "What school you grad?" as "local genealogy," and the volume is full of these little place-settings.
But what Bamboo Ridge has done for the authors seems to outweigh what the authors have done for Bamboo Ridge.
"I first heard of Bamboo Ridge in college, and until that time I didn't realize that a writer could be the person next door," said Nora Okja Keller. "I thought writers were white, elderly, distinguished, and lived in garrets in New York or Paris. I didn't know that writing can be so close to home.
"Bamboo Ridge gave me the freedom to explore myself as a writer. What I most recall about the experience is the nurturing they do -- taking the time to look at a writer's words and helping the writer find a unique voice."
Lois-Ann Yamanaka says "Growing Up Local" was a "fun issue to put together. (Long-time editors) Darrell Lum and Eric Chock have given us a place to be, a writer's place of our own. Bamboo Ridge has been around -- what? -- 20 years or so already? What's funny is that this is the Year of the Tiger and Eric and Darrell are both tigers."
At the University of Hawaii in 1982, Yamanaka wandered into a Bamboo Ridge reading of Susan Nunes' "A Small Obligation," and was transfixed.
"She was writing about Hilo, where I grew up. There were places in the story that were familiar to me, people I know, people who look like me. She floored me. It was like I had lost my way for a long time and suddenly I knew what I could do."
It worked. Both Keller and Yamanaka can be considered Bamboo Ridge honor graduates. Keller's novel "Comfort Woman" and Yamanaka's "Wild Meat and The Bully Burgers" achieved national acclaim and created awareness of the "local voice" in world literature.
And now aspiring writers listen to readings by Keller and Yamanaka.
Growing Up Local
Signings and readings: 7 p.m. Thursday, Campus Center Ballroom, University of Hawaii at Manoa
