I am a writer, an editor and a lawyer with a passion for work that honors the genius of our planet. I grew up as a nomad—by the time I was 16, I had lived in Toronto, London, Marseille, Bangkok, Ibiza, Majuro, Jamaica, San Jose (Costa Rica’s San Jose), Suva and Honolulu. Growing up this way taught me at a very young age to keep an open mind and ask a lot of questions. It also showed me what a remarkably beautiful and diverse world we live in and the tremendous need to advocate for justice and goodness within that world. At the University of Hawai‘i I earned a BA in journalism and Pacific history; at Stanford Law School I earned a JD with a focus on environmental and human rights law. Much of my writing has focused on the environment and the ways that people live within it, particularly in the North Pacific. In the 1990s I was the founding editor of the progressive newspaper, the Honolulu Weekly, and worked as an attorney at Cooley, in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. From 2003 to 2015 I was the editor and then the editor at large for Hana Hou!, the largest circulation magazine in Hawai‘i, and I also created shows for Hawai‘i Public Radio. More recently I was the editor of the IDEAS section at Honolulu Civil Beat, a contributing editor at Mānoa: A Journal of Pacific Writing and I created press notes for a number of documentary films, including three Academy Award winners. I currently work as a lawyer focused on expanding the recognized powers and jurisdictional authority of Coast Salish native nations.
In service of bringing the best energies to my work, I am also a trained mediator and a yoga teacher. I hold a certificate in traumatic stress studies from the Trauma Research Foundation, am trained in co-counseling, have attended the annual Masters trauma conferences in Oxford and am a graduate of Sacred Path Healing School. My belief in the importance of organic food and farming led me to first design and plant an organic tropical orchard in Maui that is home to 120 food trees and next to plant organic fruit tree orchards in the PNW.