Author Kikkawa kicks-off October UH Hilo Brown Bag series

Author Scott Kikkawa

The University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo English Department invites the public to hear author Scott Kikkawa as part of its October Brown Bag series Wednesday, October 8, noon – 1 p.m., University Classroom Building Room 127. Kikkawa presents “Behind the Rayon Curtain: Hawai'i Noir and the Skeletons in Our Closet.” Light refreshments will be served.

Kikkawa is the author of Kona Winds, Red Dirt, Char Siu and the upcoming Sporting Girl (to be released in early 2026), all from Bamboo Ridge Press, noir detective novels set in postwar Honolulu. He has contributed to Akashic Books’ Honolulu Noir anthology (Chris McKinney, editor). His short stories have appeared in Bamboo Ridge: The Journal of Hawai‘i Literature and Arts, the Colin Conway-edited anthology A Bag of Dick’s and the Frank Zafiro-edited anthology Thin Blue Line. His essays have appeared in The Hawai‘i Review of Books and Kyoto Journal. Bamboo Ridge Press was founded in 1978 to publish literature by, for, and about Hawaiʻi’s people.

Kikkawa has been honored with an Elliot Cades Award for Literature, and his short story “Joe Sukiyaki” from A Bag of Dick’s was selected as one of the “Other Distinguished Stories of 2021” in the 2022 Best American Mysteries and Suspense anthology. His first two novels, Kona Winds and Red Dirt, are among Honolulu Magazine’s “Essential Hawai‘i Books You Should Read: The Next 134.” He is a columnist and an Associate Editor for The Hawai‘i Review of Books.

Currently a federal law enforcement officer, the New York University alumnus lives with his family in Honolulu.

The event is sponsored by the Eurasia Foundation (from Asia), The Howard and Yoneko Droste Foundation, and the UH Hilo English Department.

For more information, email Patsy Iwasaki at piwasaki@hawaii.edu.