About the “lotus”…

My work usually balances literary pursuits with travel writing and some food and life thrown in, and of course my home base is Hawai‘i. So while “lotus” likely conjures images of a flower and meditation, and the contemplative and transformative power of reading and writing is definitely something I believe in, my use of “lotus” is rooted in literature. I think it marries place and subject well. Here’s why.

While traveling in Hawai’i in the 19th century, Isabella Bird wrote: “I sympathize with those who eat the lotus, and remain for ever on such enchanted shores.” In this way, I am a lotus-eater residing once again on O‘ahu’s enchanted shores. Now take it further, all the way back to Homer’s Odyssey and Odysseus’s visit to the Lotus-Eaters, who survive by eating a fruit that induces a stupor that makes them forget home. Some might argue that good writing and good travels can have the same effect, and they are the fruit on which I survive.

While I don’t expect that readers will get so engrossed in Literary Lotus that they will lose their way, I do hope to create content that provokes thought, debate, awareness, pleasure and entertainment, so that even if you do have to go home again, you’ll never forget to come back–for one more bite of the lotus.