Chris McKinney
BornHonolulu, Hawaii, US
OccupationWriter
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipAmerican
EducationUniversity of Hawaii
Children2

Chris McKinney is an American writer born and raised in Hawaii.[1]

Career

His novels are set in Hawaii and the plots often concern the difficulties of underprivileged people dealing with societal change.[2][3] He is an associate professor in Language Arts at Honolulu Community College where he has taught since 2003.[4][5]

McKinney was a fellow of the Hawai`i Writing Project in 1998 and the 2000 recipient of the Elliot Cades Award for Literature.[6] His novel, The Tattoo, won first place awards for Excellence in Literature and Excellence in Writing Literature from The Hawai`i Book Publishers Association.[6] His screenplay Paradise Broken was nominated for best film at the Los Angeles Pacific Film Festival. His latest novel, Midnight Water City was named a Best Mystery of 2021 by Publishers Weekly [7] and a Best Speculative Mystery of 2021 by CrimeReads [8]

Personal life

McKinney was born in Honolulu and grew up in nearby Kahalu'u.[9] His mother was Korean and his father was from Hawai'i.[10] When he was a baby his parents divorced; they both remarried and his father moved to the US mainland, to Gaithersburg, Maryland and later Selma, California.[2][10] From fourth to sixth grade, he spent the school year with his father and their new family, and summers in Hawaii with his mother and her family.[2] He stopped going back to the mainland in 6th grade.[2]

He attended Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu for high school and graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi with a B.A. in English.[2][10] He has been married twice and has two children.[11][12]

In 2019, McKinney was identified as a co-conspirator in the indictment of former Honolulu deputy prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, a family friend.[13] Between 2015 and 2017, McKinney allegedly conspired with Rudy Puana, the brother of Katherine Kealoha, to illegally sell oxycodone pills, or use the pills to purchase cocaine.[14]

Bibliography

  • The Tattoo (1999) ISBN 1569474508
  • The Queen of Tears (2001) ISBN 1566475155
  • Bolohead Row (2005) ISBN 1566477220
  • Mililani Mauka (2009) ISBN 1566478693[15]
  • Boi No Good (2012) ISBN 1566479800[16][17]
  • Red Headed Hawaiian: the inspiring story about a local boy from rural Hawaii who makes good (2014) ISBN 1939487293
  • Yakudoshi: Age of Calamity (2016) ISBN 193948765X
  • Midnight Water City (2021) ISBN 1641292407
  • Eventide Water City (2023) ISBN 1641294310
  • Sunset Water City (2023) ISBN 1641295139

References

  1. Chris McKinney on Hawaii Book and Music Festival website Archived January 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Oi, Cynthia. "Author's anger gives way to awareness – and a novel that explodes images of paradise". Star Bulletin
  3. Carlson, Ragnar (May 24, 2009). "Central character » Honolulu Weekly". honoluluweekly.com. Archived from the original on May 24, 2009. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  4. "Chris McKinney". Honolulu Community College. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  5. "Chris McKinney Will Teach Fiction at KWW 2015!". The Ko`olau Writers Workshop. February 9, 2015. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  6. 1 2 "Awards and Accolades". National Writing Project. February 13, 2015. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  7. "Best Books 2021: Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly".
  8. "The Best Speculative Thrillers and Mysteries of 2021". December 21, 2021.
  9. "Chris McKinney: Acclaimed Hawaii Author" (PBS Hawaii)
  10. 1 2 3 "Chris McKinney / Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox". PBS Hawai‘i. September 15, 2014. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  11. "Chris McKinney's New Book Dives into Honolulu's Mysterious Underworld". Honolulu Magazine. September 21, 2016. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  12. "Hawai'i's Future is Underwater". The Hawaiʻi Review of Books. July 14, 2021. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  13. "A dismissed 2015 DUI is among the ways Kealoha allegedly helped her friends". Hawaii News Now. February 27, 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2022.
  14. "The Kealohas, Cocaine Parties and Oxycodone". July 20, 2021.
  15. Mililani Mauka on Honolulu Star-Bulletin
  16. "Under the Surface with Boi No Good" (Honolulu Magazine)
  17. Boi No Good Archived January 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine (Hawaii Public Radio)
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