Join Hinton Publishing for a heartfelt storytelling and sharing event celebrating Pacific Islander literature. The evening will feature five readers who will share selections about their Pacific Islander heritage and how it functions in contemporary society. After the initial readings, we’ll open the floor to encourage everyone to share their own reflections.

While the event will emphasize Pacific Islander voices, we welcome people of all backgrounds to participate and celebrate together.

Selected reader bios:
Nova Teriiteanau Ross is the organizer of the event and a rising junior at UW studying English, interning at Hinton Publishing, and working at Odegaard Undergraduate Library. Ross has been passionate about reading and writing her entire life, she began to use Seattle’s vast resources to get a start on a career in literature after moving from her high school hometown in Central Washington. After growing up in various different towns, states, and even countries, Nova’s been lucky enough to experience all sorts of different cultures and lifestyles which creates the unique perspective that she brings into her life and work. Her passion for literature and protecting the unique voices of different peoples helps her grow as she moves through her life and discovers her own story, while sharing those of others.

Marcus Harrison Green is the publisher of Hinton Publishing, the founder of the South Seattle Emerald, and a columnist with The Stranger. Growing up in South Seattle, he experienced first-hand the impact of one-dimensional stories on marginalized communities, which taught him the value of authentic narratives. After an unfulfilling stint in the investment world during his twenties, Marcus returned to his community with a newfound purpose of telling stories with nuance, complexity, and multidimensionality with the hope of advancing social change. This led him to become a writer and found the South Seattle Emerald. An award-winning storyteller, he was awarded the Seattle Human Rights Commissions’ Individual Human Rights Leader Award for 2020, and named the inaugural James Baldwin Fellow by the Northwest African American Museum in 2022.

Namaka Auwae-Dekker is the 2017/18 Seattle Youth Poet Ambassador. She was raised in an environment surrounded by artists and learned to grow into her talent of making words sound good together. She believes everything is made of stories and to write the way you see things is a gift everyone has. In her free time you can find her eating mac n’ cheese, soaking up the sun rays, or reading.

About Hinton Publishing:
Hinton is a partnership imprint of VertVolta, located in Seattle. They publish books by Pacific Northwest authors who identify as part of an underinvited community, including but not limited to people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, folks with disabilities, and individuals from low-income backgrounds. Our mission is to uplift and resurface work that inspires, fosters belonging, challenges convention, stimulates thought, provokes action, and entertains while informing.