Back in the 1990s, my then-husband ran a small postal center in the sleepy beach town of Paia, located on the northeast side of the island of Maui. Along with mailing services, the center offered complementary options like voicemail, pagers, and fax. At that time, Paia was a quaint little town with Mom-and-Pop grocery stores where you could buy your groceries on credit—the kind where you left your name, number, and the amount owed with the cashier, who recorded it in a logbook. Many of the customers in Paia lived off-grid, meaning no county water, electricity, or phone service. If you wanted to contact a friend, you had two choices: hope to run into them in town or drive out to their home.

Bookstores were scarce on the island, something I often lamented. In the fall of 1993, my husband asked me to take over the postal center so he could focus on his other business, the financial backbone of our family. Initially, I balked at the idea of running a boring postal center. But when he suggested expanding it into a bookstore, my heart leapt at the possibilities, and I eagerly agreed.

A few years later, while sitting in my little store, I received a phone call from a rep at Borders Bookstore. She informed me that Borders would soon be opening a superstore in Kahului, a nearby town. The rep explained that they were notifying all bookstore owners on the island and gathering feedback about their impending arrival. My first thought: More books! The rest of the conversation went something like this:

“That’s great!”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Um, yes. So, you’re happy that we’re coming to Maui?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be there all the time. We need more bookstores. There’s no way my little place, or the other stores, can come close to supplying all the books readers want.”
“Well… I… well, that’s fantastic. I’m so glad to hear that.”
“I can’t wait for you to open.”
“Thank you. We’re happy to help.”

I kept my word and was there for the grand opening with all my kids, each of us carrying a pillow for the many hours we planned to spend at the store. Did I mention we were serious readers? We inhaled books. My eldest daughter read a novel or two a day. My husband started every morning with a cup of coffee and a random chapter from one of our encyclopedias. Books were everywhere in our home—stacked in the living room, tumbling from our beds, sticky or smudged on the kitchen table from meals, and even left to bake in the sun on our porch. Eventually, we had to erect a whole new building to store our growing collection, with the help of a fellow book enthusiast, Jeffrey, who owned 15,000 books himself and desperately needed storage. He never went anywhere without a duffel bag full of books.

Just as I was enthusiastic about Borders bringing more books to Maui, I feel the same way about writing. There’s no way I could ever write fast enough to satisfy voracious readers, which is why I’m happy to share other books in the genres I love to write in. So, please take a look around my site and enjoy!