Kirby Wright

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Template:Wikify-date Kirby Wright is best known for his coming of age island novel Punahou Blues (ISBN 0-9741067-1-2). The setting for the book is his high school alma mater Punahou School. The novel provides a window into the tumultuous 60s and 70s in multicultural Honolulu, from the viewpoint of a white (haole) boy narrator searching for identity in a private school. His rite of passage includes losing the girl of his dreams, not living up to his father's great expectations, surviving Killahaole Day, being suspended, sibling rivalry, fighting the school bully, and navigating the tricky waters of interracial dating.

Early Years

Wright was born at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father Harold S. Wright was a trial attorney for the firm Smith, Wilde, BeBe & Cades. His mother, the former June McCormack of Boston, was a secretary at MIT. Starting at the age of 4, Wright spent summers with his part-Hawaiian grandmother Julia Gilman on her ranch on the east end of Molokai. It was here Wright met Sophie Cooke, a cattle rancher who wrote the memoire Sincerely, Sophie about her l ife and times in the islands. This meeting proved influential to the young Wright because Cooke wrote about his grandmother. Evidence of Wright's love for the written word surfaced at Star of the Sea Elementary School in Honolulu, where he craft ed and performed plays about vampires and secret agents. He won First Place for his recital of "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer and also won awards for his original poems. He transferred to Punahou School in the 7th Grade and won the Short Story Competition. Despite winning the competition, Wright felt like an outsider at Punahou School and his experiences at this private institution will become fertile material for his novel Punahou Blues.

University Years

Wright attended the University of Colorado for a semester and then transferred to the University of Hawaii at Manoa. It was at UH he stu died under the tutelage of Maxine Hong Kingston and met the likes of Kurt Vonne gut and Allen Ginsberg. He then transferred again to UC-San Diego, where he earned his BA in English & American Literature. He sold cars for a living at Rancho Olds in Kearny Mesa after graduation an d then became PR Director for the Carlsbad Inn. Rich and unhappy, he appli ed to San Francisco State University, wher e he was accepted into the Masters Program in Creative Writing by Anne Rice. While at SFSU, he took classes taught by Frances Mayes, Daniel J. Langton, Molly Giles, and Harry Petrakis. He was the first student in the history of SFSU to sweep the poetry awards( Academy of American Poets Award, Browning Society Award for Dramatic Monologue, Ann Fields Poetry Prize).

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Awards

Wright has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and is a past recipient of the Ann Fields Poetry Prize, the Academy of American Poets Award, the Browning Society Award for Dramatic Monologue, the San Diego Book Award, and Arts Council Sili con Valley Fellowships in Poetry and The Novel. BEFORE THE CITY, his first book of poetry, took First Place at the San Diego Book Awards. PUNAHOU BLUES, his coming of age novel set in Honolulu, was a Finalist at the San Diego Book Awards and Honorable Mention at the Hawai'i Book Awards. He was recently interviewed on Fox Morning News, Art Rocks internet radio in San Diego, and Hawaiian Kine News out of Las Vegas. He will appear in the 2007 editions of Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

External links

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