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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