Jasmin Iolani Hakes: Write What Scares You
In this interview, author Jasmin Iolani Hakes discusses the 20 years of writing and scrapping that led to her new novel, The Pohaku.
Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes was born and raised in Hilo, Hawai’i. She is the author of Hula, named a Best Book of the Summer by Harper’s Bazaar and ELLE, HONOLULU Magazine’s 2024 Book of the Year, and winner of an Audiofile Earphones Award. She is the recipient of residencies from Hedgebrook, VCCA, and Storyknife. She lives in California. Follow her on Instagram.
In this interview, Jasmin discusses discusses the 20 years of writing and scrapping that led to her new novel, The Pohaku, her hope for readers, and more.
Name: Jasmin Iolani Hakes
Literary agent: Sarah Bowlin
Book title: The Pohaku
Publisher: HarperVia
Release date: February 3, 2026
Genre/category: Fiction
Previous titles: Hula
Elevator pitch: Based on true events, The Pohaku follows one extraordinary family as they try to protect a sacred stone that keeps the relationship between humankind and the natural world in balance. When it goes missing, the power of its story is the only chance they have to make things right.
What prompted you to write this book?
Soon after I moved from Hawai’i to Sacramento, I went on a trip with my daughter to Sutter’s Fort, where I read an excerpt of his journals that mentioned a group of Hawaiians that were integral to the development of the region leading up to the Gold Rush.
I spent more than a next decade trying to find out anything I could about them. When I didn’t find much, I started imagining an elder sitting in a living room somewhere with their grandchildren, telling the story of how their ancestors accompanied John Sutter to California and everything that happened when they got there. That provided me the scaffolding I built the story on.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I had this idea long before I knew anything about writing. I spent more than 15 years researching and cutting my teeth on an ambitious version of this that will never see the light of day. The desire to extract this idea from my head was what prompted me to start going to writing conferences and residencies and classes—a sort of DIY MFA—but I eventually decided to shelve it and quit writing (ha). Almost as soon as I decided that I was awarded a residency where I wrote my debut, Hula. But once Hula was published, this story started haunting me again. I decided to scrap all the old versions and start completely fresh. The pohaku was the only thing that survived that cull.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
By the time it came time to work with my editor and publisher, I had been working on this in a silo for nearly 20 years. So, I think the most surprising thing was how enjoyable it was to finally be able to bring it to the table and share it.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Definitely. I’m not a historian, but here I had nearly 300 years of intertwined history between two richly storied places—California and Hawai’i—that I wanted to condense into a novel. It was quite intimidating. Along the way I learned how to peel back layers of history, interviewing scholars and historians and park rangers, touring the Northern California foothills, scouring records and newspaper archives. The story eventually became a heap of puzzle pieces to fit together. The biggest, and best, surprise was how much historical material I ended up being able to work with. Nearly all of it—minus the pohaku itself—is based on true events.
Another surprise was how much this book ended up being about climate change, environmental practices, religion, and the power of storytelling. I never could have predicted its cultural relevance to some of the many conversations we’re having right now.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope readers are entertained, but I also hope they come away from this story with an element of “this could have been the way things happened.”
I hope every single person who passes through Sutter’s Fort will know of the Hawaiians and indigenous peoples who gave their lives to the region.
Finally, I hope the book prompts a bit of reflection. What untold history exists within your own family stories? History books capture such a small fraction of events both large and small. The responsibility of recording, remembering, and passing on falls to us—the witnesses of the present—to all that happens every day that doesn’t make it into the news cycles.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Write what scares you. Write words that make you quiver with emotion. Write with your ancestors in the room.
