A Brief
History of the Hawai'i Literary Arts Council
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THE HAWAI'I LITERARY ARTS
COUNCIL was founded in 1974 to encourage and
promote literature and literary activity of all
sorts in Hawai'i. The primary activating force in
its founding was the poet and reviewer Phyllis
Thompson. Phyllis had been organizing readings and
generally energizing the scene before then, and in
1974, with the help of her ambitious students and
proteges, along with other colleagues and
supporters, HLAC got underway.
Since then, almost every literary activity in
Hawai'i--poetry and fiction readings, workshops,
conferences, seminars--involving the full range of
local writers and visiting writers, has been either
sponsored, co-sponsored, or promoted by HLAC. The
list of writers supported by HLAC is huge,
including W. S. Merwin, Reuel Denney,
and Nobel Prize-winner Czeslaw Milosz, to name
three.
Most important, HLAC is open and fair. HLAC supports
all the local literary reviews and magazines that contact --Hawai'i
Review, Chaminade Literary Review, Manoa, Bamboo
Ridge, Hawai'i Pacific Review, Rainbird, and many
others over the years, including the feisty
independent alternative magazine, Oahu Review, edited by
Joe Balaz, and the very newest magazines shaking up the
literary community, including 'Oiwi, Hybolics, and
others.
HLAC is non-profit, supported by the State
Foundation on Culture and the Arts, the NEA, and,
crucially, its membership and volunteers. If you
are interested in literature as a reader or writer, consider joining HLAC.
As a member, you receive monthly flyers detailing all the literary
action we know about in Hawai'i, and membership
includes a copy of KAIMANA. Membership is a bargain, and HLAC does good and
useful work. Join and participate, and help reading
and writing in Hawai'i.
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RECENT EVENTS
The Hawai'i Literary Arts Council Past Presidents
Reading
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Tony Quagliano, Joe Stanton, Sue Cowing and
Libby Young
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