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Hawaii Book & Music Festival @ Civic Grounds in Historic Downtown Honolulu
Saturday & Sunday, May 14-15: 10 am - 5 pm
FREE admission and FREE parking! Over 500 presenters and 150 events. National and local best-selling authors, music and entertainment, and PBS Kids characters. Stop by the Bess Press booth for great deals on books and fun activities!

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MEDIA CONTACT
Tiffany Hervey, Community Liaison, 808.734.7159 x16, tiff@besspress.com

Bess Press, Inc. has been publishing for Hawai'i and the Pacific since 1979. For over 30 years the family-owned business has been producing educational and popular general interest titles about the region.

7 new Bess Press titles are being released in Fall 2010, available for pre-order and regular sale online at www.BessPress.com and available at all local Hawai'i bookstores and book retailers.

PRESS RELEASE
Bess Press, Inc. releases new book with local author Greg Ambrose entitled Stories of Rell Sunn: Queen of Makaha

Honolulu, HI (November 2010) - Author and surfer Greg Ambrose has collected a moving series of stories about the legendary water woman and pioneer of women’s professional surfing, Rell Kapolioka’ehukai Sunn. Sunn was renowned throughout Hawaii and many parts of the world for her skills as a lifeguard, diver, spear-fisher, and, most of all, as a top female surfer. At the heart of Rell Sunn were her spirited enthusiasm, her passion for life, and her extension of aloha to all she met.

Rell’s accomplishments and experiences with all kinds of people have rendered fantastic, celebratory, melancholy, yet unforgettable stories told by those who knew Rell best: her daughter Jan, Rabbit Kekai, Bruce Jenkins, Brickwood Galuteria, Ron Mitsutani, Fred Hemmings, Kathy Terada, Bonga Perkins, Mark Cunningham, Sunny Garcia, and Jeannie Chesser among others.

More than just a water woman, Rell Sunn was also a cancer survivor. Beyond her accomplishments in the water she dedicated her time and energy to the Waianae Coast Community Health Center working with other women suffering from breast cancer. Rell is known well today for creating the Menehune Surfing Contest; the collected interviews and stories by Ambrose bear witness to the multi-faceted Renaissance woman Rell was.

This book is a real tribute to Duke Kahanamoku’s female counterpart, the “Queen of Makaha.” Through these memoirs, readers can now journey with the water woman, and new generations can learn about her legend.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg Ambrose, former editor and writer at the San Francisco Chronicle, was the ocean reporter and editor for the former Honolulu Star-Bulletin. He is currently a freelance writer and is the featured contributor to the Discovery Channel’s prized show, Shark Week. Greg is a Kapalapala Ko’opela Book Award winner as well as a recipient of the Kilohana Award of Excellence for previous books he has written. His works include Shark Bites and Surfer’s Guide to Hawai’i, both published by Bess Press.

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PRESS RELEASE
Bess Press, Inc. releases new book with local author Phillip S. Roberts entitled Waikiki Tiki: Art, History, and Photographs

Honolulu, HI (November 2010) - Bess Press introduces a stylish history of Waikiki tiki. Featuring a collection of archived tiki ephemera, carvings, and photographs, author Phil Roberts gives an evocative pictorial documentation of the past and present Waikiki tiki and the newfound popularity of its culture. As a well-known tiki enthusiast and researcher, freelance journalist, and former local radio personality, Roberts has had a unique and diversified exposure to the changing façade of Waikiki. The collection presented throughout the pages of this book detail over three decades of research.

Beginning with an introduction by local Hawaii musician Henry Kapono, the book features original and rare photographs documenting tiki art and the burgeoning scene that blossomed after WWII. As this pop-culture and art has evolved today, many images captured no longer exist. Much of the ephemera and archival material displayed resides only the author’s private collection.

"The effigies of the Hawaiian ancestors and their neighboring brothers have been studied, discussed and displayed in museums as valued cultural heirlooms for over a century. In the meantime, their populist likenesses were marginalized as tourist art, neglected and forgotten. It is time that 20th Century Tiki gets recognized as unique art form that had its own time, place and meaning for a different, new generation of islanders and visitors from all cultures. Waikiki Tiki makes an essential contribution to the appreciation of this Polynesian pop culture."
- Sven Kirsten, Author of The Book of Tiki and Tiki Modern

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phillip S. Roberts is a former radio air personality in Hawaii and currently works as a freelance writer and photographer. He is an avid tiki researcher, documentarian, and collector.

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PRESS RELEASE
Bess Press, Inc. releases new book with local author and collector Barbara Wavell entitled Arts and Crafts of Micronesia: Trading With Tradition

Honolulu, HI (November 2010) - Sometimes it takes an outsider to show the rest of the world the obvious. For 35 years Barbara Wavell, author, researcher, cultural anthropologist, and lover of Micronesian Art, has collected material that offers a detailed window into the little known world of arts and crafts from some of the world’s most remote islands, those of Micronesia.

Bess Press, a Hawaii/Pacific based publisher, is excited to release the first book of its kind, Arts and Crafts of Micronesia: Trading with Tradition, a contemporary and comprehensive Pacific-themed book on the art of Micronesia.

With over 130 photographs and other graphics, Arts and Crafts of Micronesia: Trading with Tradition provides valuable information about the material culture and traditions of some of the Pacific’s oldest island nations and communities. The hundreds of images--carved statuary, storyboards, model canoes, woven mats, baskets, fans--are beautifully detailed and offer the reader a fresh and sophisticated look at the evolution, traditions, and modern-day applications of art and craftsmanship from the islands of Chuuk, Palau, Saipan, Yap, and the Marshall Islands.

The book explores the hidden world of art in Micronesia and provides a wealthy resource for collectors, historians, researchers, and general-interest readers. The book’s creation was a collaborative effort among publisher Bess Press, the U.S. National Park Service, and the Historic Preservation Office of the Federated States of Micronesia.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Wavell has been collecting art from throughout Micronesia since 1975. She has a master’s degree in cultural anthropology and is a member of the Pacific Arts Association and the Association of Social Anthropologists in Oceania.

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PRESS RELEASE
Bess Press, Inc. releases new graphic novel with Big Island author Patsy Iwasaki and illustrator Avery Berido entitled Hamakua Hero: A True Plantation Story

Honolulu, HI (November 2010) - “A Japanese storekeeper, K. Goto, was found dead this morning at 6 o'clock, hanging from a cross arm on a telephone pole about one hundred yards from the Honoka’a jail. A two-inch thick rope, evidently purchased for the purpose, was used and, from all appearances, no bungling hands performed the work. The dead man's hands and legs were pinioned and a genuine hangman's knot was under his left ear.”
- Letter dated October 29, 1889, published in the Daily Pacific Commercial Advertiser.

Bess Press introduces the first historic graphic novel depicting the life and tragic murder of Katsu Goto, a Japanese immigrant and plantation worker who rose to prominence as a merchant on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Goto’s story is an important addition to the immigration history of the Japanese in Hawai’i and the US mainland.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR
Author Patsy Iwasaki writes and illustrator Avery Berido intricately draws a story that details the racial and cultural problems Japanese immigrants like Goto faced on the Hawaiian plantations. The poignant biography is a powerful literary work that was originally printed in Japan in collaboration with The Hiroshima Society. Hamakua Hero: A True Plantation Story has since been translated into English and is a highly engaging read for both general interest and educational purposes.

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PRESS RELEASE
Bess Press, Inc. releases new science-fiction graphic novel with author Tony Clapes and illustrator Yishan Li entitled TROPICA

Honolulu, HI (November 2010) - Tony Clapes, President of the Nuuanu Valley Association and retired lawyer, has released the contemporary science-fiction graphic novel, TROPICA. Author Clapes and illustrator Li have created an intriguing and entertaining story about the mechanisms for change and the obstacles to economic development in an island society.

Readers will be amused by and local government officials possibly miffed at parallels drawn between the economic issues and problems in the fictional island of Tropica and those we face in Hawai’i.

Uniquely presented in an action-oriented manga format, TROPICA has appeal for readers of all ages. It pits good versus evil in the format of young school kids battling against oppressive governing forces corrupting their lands. The loosely fictional tropical island atmosphere lends an exotic twist to the story line of governmental waste, centralized control, and an indifferent bureaucracy.

TROPICA also offers isle educators a student friendly economic learning tool. When initially proposed to Bess Press, TROPICA was accepted for publication after Clapes conducted a seminar for 5th and 6th graders in Hawai’i’s public schools. His presentation focused on why Hawai’i operates the way it does but, more importantly, explored ways our island’s economic future could improve as a result of our own awareness and decisions.

TROPICA offers all readers an alternative and entertaining viewpoint on the issues of economic development.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR
Tony Clapes is currently running for Hawai’i State Governor. He is the author of two previous books on software economics and the prospects of economic development in Hawaii. He graduated from Yale Law School in ’67 and was a former top 30 US high-tech intellectual property lawyer. He is also the President of the Nuuanu Valley Association and currently sits on the advisory boards of several community and educational groups in addition to providing legal advice for both private and non-profit businesses.

Yishan Li is a manga artist living in Shanghai. She has been illustrating manga since 1998. She is a well-known artist with over 25 published titles published in China, the US, the United Kingdom, and France.

PRESS RELEASE
Bess Press, Inc. releases new art book with photographer Wayne Levin entitled AKULE

Honolulu, HI (December 2010) - Capturing the big-eyed scad off the Kona Coast of Hawai‘i’s Big Island that gather and move in dazzling clusters in order to deter predators, akule have been bountiful in Hawai‘i for centuries. Their presence has commanded the attention of fisherman throughout the ages. The images command our attention, “living sculptures” as Levin calls them, evoking emotions and sensations in the onlooker as only the purest forms of natural biology can. Levin’s black and white imagery vividly presents the massive akule schools suspended in movement and lucidly carries the reader with these hundreds of individuals moving in unison.  “I want to keep following that question of whether the true individual is the animal or the group,” Levin says.

"In Wayne Levin's underwater oeuvre, heightened awareness is achieved in reverse: We are plunged forth into a tenebrous tableau, escaping the comfortable world we know, sinking ever deeper through the aquasphere as shifting elemental forces rearrange perception.... A glimpse through Levin's viewfinder leaves us breathless.  Our response has little to do with lack of oxygen. It is, instead, a tingling visceral exclamation of how beautiful—and textural—Levin's milieu is in the absence of color."
- Todd Wilkinson, Editor of Wildlife Art Journal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wayne Levin has been photographing the land and oceans since the early 1970s. A resident of Hawai‘i since 1968, he received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. His books and monographs include Kalaupapa: A Portrait (1989) documenting the Hansen's disease settlement on the island of Moloka‘i, Through a Liquid Mirror (1998), and Other Oceans (2001). Levin's photographs were also included in Kaho'olawe: Na Leo o Kanaloa (1996) and have appeared in such publications as Aperture, American Photographer, Camera Arts, and LensWork. 

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