Rain Wright

Contact:
rwright7@hawaii.edu

Office hours:
TR 9:00-10: a.m.

Rain Wright writes creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Rain was raised on Hawai‘i Island in a redwood house surrounded by coffee and macadamia nut fields in Hōnaunau between Filipino Clubhouse Road and Telephone Exchange Road in a multi-artistic family. Her mother painted water colors on silk (purples and greens) and her father was a jazz musician who sang at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel--both influence her writing. Rain finds many of her stories by mapping her memories along Māmalahoa Highway to the markers that people use to give directions on Hawai‘i Island. Rain was the Nonfiction Editor for Hawaiʻi Review from May 2015-May 2016. Rain has an obsession with the ocean. She knows it cures.  

Publications


  Creative Nonfiction
  •  “The Grey House Didn’t Speak,” Mud Season Review, 2016
  • “Dinuguan in Captain Cook,” Connotations Press: An Online Artifact, 2016
  • “Dinuguan in Captain Cook,” Madras Magazine, 2016
  • “Shrines,” Summit Magazine, 2016
  • “A Way With Water,” Hawai‘i Review81: Muliwai, 2015
  • “Shrines,” Hawai‘i Review82: Ian MaCMillan, third place winner, 2015
Poetry
  • “Sisters,” Hawaiʻi Pacific Review, 2016
  •  “Tangles in Organ,” Hawai‘i Review81: Muliwai, 2016
  Under Review
  • “We Came Up the Hill” Craft Short Fiction Prize
  • “Flute Music” North American Review
  • “Birth Water” The Masters Review
  • “Mother to Mother” Fourth Genre
Work in Progress Everything Turns to Light.  Everything Turns to Light, a series of non-linear creative nonfiction stories that complicate life writing trauma narratives, pushing against the binary between a traumatic past and a present healed through narrative and familial bonds. Healing comes in the form of sacred family spaces, lomilomi (the prayer work of hands), and storytelling.

Areas of Interest


 
  • Contemporary Life Writing
  • Critical Ethnic Studies Theory
  • Creative Writing Pedagogy
 

Awards


  • University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Frances Davis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching for Graduate Teaching Assistants
  • LLL Award for Dissertation Research
  • Honorable Mention, Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award, “We Came Up the Hill,” 2017
  • Stryker Prize, Creative Writing Program, UHMānoa,“We Came Up the Hill,” 2016
  • Third place, Saiki Prize, Creative Writing Program, UH Mānoa, “Keʻei Stories,” 2016
  • Biography Prize, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2014
  • Abernethy Award in Creative Writing, 2013
  • The Red Mandarin and Lady Yi Suen Shen Tuition Scholarship in English, 2013
  • Myrle Clark Award, Creative Writing, 2011

Education


  • Ph.D., Candidate, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Department of English, Dissertation: Everything Turns to Light
  • M.A. in English, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Creative Writing focus, 2012            M.A Thesis: A Way With Water, 
    • Winner of the University of Hawaiʻi Biography Award, 2014
  • Bachelor of English, Highest Honors, Summa Cum Laude, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, 2012, Honors Thesis: Struggle and Strength

Courses


Fall Semester 2018
  • ENG-100: Composition I
  • ENG-100: Composition I
Summer Semester 2018
  • ENG-311: Autobiographical Writing
  • ENG-311: Autobiographical Writing
Spring Semester 2018
  • ENG-273: Intro to Lit: Creative Writing: Life Writing and Trauma
Fall Semester 2017
  • ENG-100: Composition I
Summer Semester 2017
  • ENG-273: Intro to Lit: Creative Writing (Session II)
  • ENG-311: Autobiographical Writing (Session I)
  • ENG-311: Autobiographical Writing (Session II)
Spring Semester 2017
  • ENG-273: Creative Writing: Truth and Lives in Autobiography
  • ENG-273: Creative Writing: Reading/Writing Short Stories
Fall Semester 2016
  • ENG-271: Genre: Ethnic American Lit