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Words and Wine

Each month Kona Stories hosts an event with local and traveling authors. This event happens the First Tuesday evening of the month starting at 6 PM. Authors are available to talk story while you are getting your plate of appetizers and glass of complimentary wine. Authors then give a 15 minute talk about their book and themselves, the writing and publishing process or a short reading from the book. After all the authors presentations there is a time for individual questions and book signings with the authors. Expect 2 - 3 authors to attend each month and the evening to wrap up around 8 PM. Dress is Aloha casual wear.

June Authors are:

Neena Roumell, Ph.D

Neena Roumell, Ph.D is a licensed psychologist.  Her training with several world renowned pediatricians including Berry Brazelton, shaped her focus on the importance of educating new parents and especially to new fathers, on the emotional needs of infants.  Her academic work in child development has appeared in peer reviewed journals and publications. Dr. Roumell lives with her husband on their farm in Hawaii where she grows organic food and continues to work on more books extolling the importance of the nurturing presence of involved fathers.

Attachment Fathering reaches out to new parents to help strengthen the bond between the fathers and babies;  and  to reinforce the opportunity for strong attachments and sensitive parenting. The photographs primarily focus on fathers and their infants; looking at their interactions following birth, comforting, caretaking and during play.   

"Attachment Fathering  reflects the vital role fathers play in the lives of their children.  It can help motivate fathers to become involved , nurturing caregivers from the moment their children enter the world." -  Christopher Brown, President, National Fatherhood Initiative

 

 

Jada Tan Rufo

Jada Tan Rufo is a former English as a Second Language teacher (ESL) to China and author of Banana Girl: An Asian American Woman’s Life in China. Visit her Banana Girl Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/xinghuajiangsu/. Although she is originally born and raised on Hawaii Island she still feels like a Rip Van Winkle and thus has a blog titled xinghuajiangsu charting her re-entry experience in her home state. Check out her blog at https://xinghuajiangsu.wordpress.com/. Jada is also a moderator for TEFLChina, for YahooGroups, one of the largest ESL support online sites and is an active member of the Hawaii Writers Group. She currently lives and works in Hawaii.

In The Zone we meet two families  who are caught up in a conflict that will forever change their lives. In the summer of 1937 Japan attacks the city of Shanghai and thus begins their brutal campaign of the “three alls” – burn all, loot all, kill all. Like a tidal wave they burn, loot, and kill all in their path along the Yangzte River. Their campaign ends with the horrendous rape of the city of Nanjing.

 Meizhen and her daughter Xue face these dangers everyday. Months of air raids cause the pair to constantly move and seek shelter in an elusive International Safety Zone established by twenty-two westerners who have defied their governments’ orders to leave China.  Meanwhile the Tan family struggle to stay safe from groups of marauding groups of Japanese soldiers who prowl on the women of Nanjing. Fear and vigilance is the order of the day as the family struggles to search for their son Jun while keeping their teenage daughter Ling safe from Japanese soldiers.

 

 

Uma Ojeda

 

Uma Ojeda is a case manager for homeless people who enjoys yoga, Zumba, dancing, singing and playing the ukulele. She began her love-seeking journey in kindergarten; the search took her to Arizona at 13, California at 20, where she learned from a real-live Guru, and Virginia at 36, where she got herself in many sticky-man situations. Only recently did she learn how to open her heart and evolve into a faithful, happy, fulfilled & committed wife. She is the mother of two grown sons, a wild dolphin/ocean swimmer, forest hiker and lover of life. She currently resides in Kailua Kona, Hawaii.  Uma credits Hawaii with making almost all of her dreams come true. She has traveled and lived in China & the Philippines, where her Uma Zuma Duo played music weekly at a Cuban restaurant.

 

Her book, Love is Crazy we meet a quirky, love-weary, single mom  who is mugged in South Central LA.  She chases her mugger down and wonders how she got there…an unbelievable fictional tale based on a true story to follow her heart from Sedona to Seattle to South Central LA. But her fiancé suffers from an incurable disease (seriously I did not make this shit up!) and her children have no choice but to follow her as she learns invaluable love lessons while singing her heart out in this riotous, topsy-turvy adventure in love. She travels by 4-wheel jeeps and tortuous Greyhound buses, takes cross-country drives, and deals with a pathological liar, her fiancé’s teenage brat and his hallucinogenic prescription drugs. She survives Sexaholics Anonymous and powerfully positive self-help groups. Our heroine learns to do whatever it takes to find and keep love, but is it enough?

 

 

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Date: 06/05/2018
Time: 12:00pm - 2:00pm
Place:

78-6831 Alii Drive
Suite 142
Kailua Kona, HI 96740
United States