Hawaii Freelance Writer
A long-time freelance writer, one of my specialties is writing about Hawaii and its people, places, business, culture and more.
I’ve written about everything from the tiny, endangered wekiu bug atop Mauna Kea to multi-million-dollar custom, luxury homes; from growing kalo and pounding poi to digitizing 19th-century Hawaiian language newspapers. My Hawaii-related articles have appeared in many newspapers, magazines, books and on blogs. My personal essays about Hawaii have aired on NPR’s All Things Considered and elsewhere.
My article Aftershock, in Honolulu magazine, is a look back at the October 2006, 6.7 Big Island earthquake, and how the island was faring a year later.
Kalo (also known as taro) is much more than merely the traditional starch food of Hawai‘i; the revered plant appears in the Hawaiian creation chant as an actual ancestor of the Hawaiian people. My article Kalo Culture, for the Hawaiian Airlines in-flight magazine Hana Hou!, won the first place “Excellence in Journalism” award for feature writing/long form from the Society of Professional Journalists. It was also awarded the Hawai‘i Visitor and Convention Bureau’s “Keep It Hawai`i” award (print media division).
I have written hundreds of magazine articles; links to a few others below.
Coming myself from a part-Hawaiian family on the Big Island, I am tapped in to the people, places and things of these Hawaiian Islands. And even beyond that, I’ve studied Hawaiian cultural anthropology formally, earning a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii in that subject area, which nicely complements my journalism degree. It’s tremendously satisfying to me that two of my strongest interests, Hawaii and writing, have come together so well.
I am currently accepting assignments for writing related to almost anything about Hawai‘i, as well as other topics. Reach me at leslie@leslielang.com.
Some other articles I’ve written (more coming to this list soon; you can also contact me for additional samples of my work):
