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 most widely read magazine in Hawai‘i. More recently I was the editor of the IDEAS section at Honolulu Civil Beat and a contributing editor at Mānoa: A Journal of Pacific Writing.
I believe that flow and balance are essential in all things and to this end I am also a trained mediator, a certified yoga teacher, and a graduate of both Sacred Path Healing School and workshops with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a pioneer in the field of treating trauma. My belief in the importance of organic food and farming led me to design and plant an organic tropical orchard that is home to 120 food trees.
