Keoni Kealoha Alvarez: KAPU Series
The accidental discovery of a burial cave near his ancestral home in Puna on Hawaiʻi Island set the trajectory for Alvarez’ life. He was only 8 years old at the time, but he has made it his life’s work to protect iwi kūpuna, and in particular, to watch over the iwi resting in the burial cave he stumbled upon more than 35 years ago.
Over the decades, Alvarez has immersed himself in learning about traditional burial methods, eventually producing a film, KAPU: Sacred Hawaiian Burials, along with several books that detail this remarkable discovery and what he has learned since.
There are now four books in the series, beginning with a children’s book, The Boy and his Hawaiian Cave, published in 2021 followed by KAPU: Hawaiian Burial Methods published in 2022, KAPU: “Sacred Hawaiian Burials” – the book version of his film – published in 2023, and in May 2025, Alvarez published his fourth book, a hardcover coffee table book by the same name that uses illustrations and culturally grounded narrative to help people understand traditional Hawaiian ways of honoring the ancestors.
All books in the KAPU series are available on Amazon, and the two-hour film can be viewed on PBS Hawaiʻi at pbshawaii.org/kapu-sacred-hawaiian-burials/.
Peter J. Oluloa Britos: Valley of Spiraling Winds
Writer Pete Britos was born to a family of musicians and traveled the world playing music as a child. In the 1980s he competed in professional level racquetball in California, and after leaving the sports industry worked a variety of jobs including as a logger and painter. In the 1990s he landed in the Los Angeles film industry writing, producing, and directing.
After earning an MFA in screenwriting and a Ph.D. in critical media studies, he returned to Hawaiʻi, and helped develop art, film, digital media and animation programs at UH Mānoa, Hawaiʻi Pacific University (HPU), and the State Foundation for Culture & the Arts. He is currently a professor at HPU.
Britos’ debut novel, Valley of Spiraling Winds, is a groundbreaking, speculative sci-fi novel – the first novel by a Kānaka Maoli writer published by UH Press – and is the first of a planned trilogy. The book explores the roots of contemporary Hawaiʻi through the lens of a dystopian future. It is an edgy, time-hopping novel that follows the journey of a mixed-race Hawaiian family over three centuries.
Britos has also written and directed an indie film, House of the Shark, that will be released in 2026. Valley of Spiraling Winds is available from UH Press, Native Books Hawaiʻi and Amazon.
Mārata Tamaira & Carl Pao: Mother Tree, Daughter Seed
Husband and wife duo, writer Mārata Tamaira and artist Carl Pao, teamed up to produce a new children’s book, Mother Tree, Daughter Seed: Lessons in Slow Growth, about the tender relationship between two koa trees, Mother Tree and her offspring Daughter Seed. Over the course of many decades, and at every stage of her development, Mother Tree guides Daughter Seed – who ultimately learns the meaning of self-worth, the value of slow-growth, and the interconnectedness of all things.
Hawaiʻi-based author Mārata Tamaira is Māori with ancestral links to Ngāti Tūwharetoa. She has a doctoral degree in gender, media and cultural studies and has published widely in academic journals, book anthologies, and periodicals. Mother Tree, Daughter Seed is her first children’s book and her first book collaboration with her husband, celebrated ʻŌiwi artist Carl Pao, an art teacher at Kamehameha Schools whose work has been featured in both private and public collections here in Hawaiʻi and abroad.
Blending contemporary storytelling and vibrant illustrations, Mother Tree, Daughter Seed is rooted in an ethos of social emotional literacy and ecological stewardship reinforced with ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and Hawaiian values. It is available from UH Press, Native Books Hawaiʻi, Barnes & Noble, UBC Press, and Amazon.
John Tsukayama: LIVED WITH PURPOSE
John Tsukayama’s new book, LIVED WITH PURPOSE: A Grandfather’s Guide to Living with Honor, Heart and Humor, is a memoir written first for his grandchildren. It shares his perspective on Hawaiian values and community challenges through the lens of his experiences as a graduate of Kamehameha Schools, an IRS officer, a private investigator, a security executive, and an academic.
Tsukayama, an adjunct professor at BYU Hawaiʻi, has a Ph.D. in international relations. His memoir weaves together his personal stories and professional experiences in which truth meets consequences. Despite a life spent seeking painful truth in the shadows, his memoir is a story of hope and a manual for living.
With a personal philosophy centered on Hawaiian values, hospitality, and extending the definition of “family,” his memoir is intended to pass along lessons of kuleana to future generations. A significant portion of his book details his work as an investigation team leader for the 1997-1999 Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate “Broken Trust” controversy, which he calls “the most important case of my life.”
His first book, The Process of Investigation, now in its fourth edition, is a collaboration with Charles A. Sennewald first published in the 1980s. LIVED WITH PURPOSE will be available at Amazon beginning December 15.
