All Things Change Eventually
Even for Hawaii Writers Guild Members
Since we had our annual meeting and election of officers in January, we want to take this opportunity to say mahalo to our departing secretary, Diane Revell and aloha to Donna Beumler, who was elected to take her place.
 Diane Revell
If you've been a member of Hawaii Writers Guild for any length of time, you probably know about Diane and you certainly have heard from her. She was the person who sent you the agenda to our monthly board meetings and invited you to attend. As secretary, she also wrote and posted the minutes after each meeting, preserving a record of the Guild’s history. Diane served as secretary from October 2017 until January 2022. Her meeting minutes from that period, if gathered together, probably would equal in length a good-sized novel. But that’s not all she did for the Guild during that time, She also participated in the committee that worked with our attorney to obtain our 501(c)(3) status as a nonprofit organization and she played a large part on the committee that wrote the bylaws that keep us operating legally. And those are just two of a long list of impressive contributions Diane made to the development of Hawaii Writers Guild. Her list of accomplishments while on the HWG board could probably fill this whole issue of Member News. Some would say she was the glue that held our organization together as it morphed and changed after its founding. Although she has relinquished her secretarial duties, Diane will still be an active participant in Guild affairs. She will continue in her role as the registered agent for the Guild, receiving service of process on behalf of the Guild if—heaven forfend—we should ever be sued. Diane says she plans to attend each of the monthly Board meetings to keep on top of what is happening in the Guild, so she can “help where I can, and support the Guild as it has helped me enrich my writing activities.” And speaking of writing activities, Diane has plans. “I hope to be able to bring a collection of my poems and photos together in a self-published chapbook that I can make available for purchase. The current plan is for a book centered on my experiences of North Kohala and the poems and photos related to that.” The working title is Kohala on My Mind and as it will contain many photos, Diane plans to use Shutterfly, an online printer of photobooks, for the initial version. |
Donna Beumler
Diane might have transitioned out of her secretarial role a year earlier, but for two things: Carol McMillan, who was starting her first year as president of the Guild, asked her to stay on, and Donna Beumler, who was interested in succeeding Diane as secretary, was reluctant to jump in “cold turkey”. Donna was willing to “shadow” Diane in her secretarial duties for a year, however, to learn the job. By the end of that year, she was willing to run for the position, and she was elected.
Donna may be cautious, but her caution isn’t due to any doubts about her innate ability. Before she moved to Hawaii and focused her efforts on her writing, Donna was a lawyer who worked for many years as a prosecutor, defense attorney and judge in southeastern Arizona before retiring and moving to Hawaii. Her previous career in criminal justice stood her in good stead when she published her first novel, a legal thriller titled Criminal/Lawyer. Her work with children whose lives became entangled with the legal system also shows up in much of her poetry. (See the story elsewhere in this issue about her poem “Bears” published recently in The Journal of Undiscovered Poets.) Like Diane, Donna now lives in North Kohala on the Big Island. She has been a member of Hawaii Writers Guild since 2018 and attends the Kohala Writers Group. 
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Johnson Kahili
Before we leave the subject of our annual meeting, we should focus on one other member of the Guild. If you watched the meeting on Zoom you no doubt saw Johnson Kahili IV, who was the emcee and coordinator of the entire production.
Johnson joined Hawaii Writers Guild in 2020. With the encouragement of President Carol McMillan, it wasn’t long before Johnson became a member of the board of directors, taking over for Louise Riofrio when she stepped down as events director. Since then, Johnson has handled many Guild events, but none of them bigger than our annual meeting and election of officers this past January.
Being events director for the Guild would have been about as much as most people could handle, but when North Kohala Director Eila Algood decided to stop producing her video program Inside the Writers Studio, which she initiated when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the Guild’s in- person authors readings, Johnson stepped into the breach. He developed a program he calls Hawaii Writers Showcase which now appears on the Guild’s YouTube channel.
Johnson has also made a regular appearance about once a month as one of a team of facilitators that lead the Guild's weekly writers support group for members, Readings and Responses.
[Editor's Note: All of these leadership duties appeared not to have slowed down Johnson's own writing. He regularly presented segments of his novel-in-progress to not one, but two writers support groups. He had completed one fantasy novel and was exploring the world of publishing while embarking on a second novel. However, it now appears that Johnson himself is entering a transition. He has recently revealed he can no longer continue producing Hawaii Writers Showcase. He will remain a member of the HWG board until a replacement is found.
Thank you for all your contributions, Johnson. Your example on many fronts has been and will continue to be inspiration to us all.]
Johnson joined Hawaii Writers Guild in 2020. With the encouragement of President Carol McMillan, it wasn’t long before Johnson became a member of the board of directors, taking over for Louise Riofrio when she stepped down as events director. Since then, Johnson has handled many Guild events, but none of them bigger than our annual meeting and election of officers this past January.
Being events director for the Guild would have been about as much as most people could handle, but when North Kohala Director Eila Algood decided to stop producing her video program Inside the Writers Studio, which she initiated when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the Guild’s in- person authors readings, Johnson stepped into the breach. He developed a program he calls Hawaii Writers Showcase which now appears on the Guild’s YouTube channel.
Johnson has also made a regular appearance about once a month as one of a team of facilitators that lead the Guild's weekly writers support group for members, Readings and Responses.
[Editor's Note: All of these leadership duties appeared not to have slowed down Johnson's own writing. He regularly presented segments of his novel-in-progress to not one, but two writers support groups. He had completed one fantasy novel and was exploring the world of publishing while embarking on a second novel. However, it now appears that Johnson himself is entering a transition. He has recently revealed he can no longer continue producing Hawaii Writers Showcase. He will remain a member of the HWG board until a replacement is found.
Thank you for all your contributions, Johnson. Your example on many fronts has been and will continue to be inspiration to us all.]
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And what, you may wonder, is Eila Algood doing now that she has stopped producing Inside the Writers Studio? We’re happy to report that Eila has transitioned into other projects. (See our report elsewhere in this issue on her newly-published eBook, Smitten and Bitten.)
Eila Algood
In addition, Eila has announced an opportunity for women members of Hawaii Writers Guild. For more than seven years, she has been broadcasting a radio program on KNKR (North Kohala Radio, 96.1 FM) which includes a segment called “Women’s Voices.” Eila is inviting women writers interested in reading poems or very short essays for the “Women’s Voices” segment to contact her. If you’re too shy to read your work yourself or just don’t think you have a “radio voice,” Eila says she will consider reading your work on the air herself. If you’re interested in this opportunity, you can reach Eila at ealgood@gmail.com.
