I could read about writing, sometimes instead of sitting down and actually writing, until the cows come home. (“What cows?” asked my then-four-year-old with a puzzled look, once, when I used that expression.)

East Hawai‘i, of course, has so much interesting history, and one of the fun things about our tours is that we can sneak people into places one doesn’t ordinarily get to see.

Except a living man there is nothing
more wonderful than a book!
A message to us from the dead,
- from human souls whom we never saw,
who lived perhaps thousands of miles away;
and yet these, on those little sheets of paper,
speak to us, teach us, comfort us,
open their hearts to us as brothers.
-  Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)

Darien Gee is a Big Island writing dynamo, and acquaintance, whose new novel Friendship Bread (Ballantine Books/Random House) comes out April 5, 2011.

If you’re not in the freelance writing business, you might not know how much it’s changed. But oh, how it has changed.

“A little library, growing larger every year, is an honourable part of a man’s history.”

A poem about books and time.

Steve Grogan is going to be here, on the Big Island and O‘ahu, signing books, and you should swing by. I’m going to stop by when he’s at Basically Books in Hilo on Saturday. He is an interesting guy and you should stop by, say hello and pick up a book, which he’ll sign for you.

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel. – Edward Abbey

“I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.” – Ray Bradbury