Writing by Micronesians Wanted for Anthology of Regional Literature

[Stacey King]

Yokwe Net Online - Everything Marshall Islands
5 March 2009

Two writers from Micronesia have sent out a call for submissions for an Anthology of Micronesian Writing. Dr. Evelyn Flores and Emelihter Kihleng are seeking work from indigenous or Native writers from Micronesia including Guam, Palau, the Northern Marianas, Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Yap, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, and Kiribati.

“Send us your stories,” says Emelihter Kihleng, a Pohnpeian poet who teaches English at the University of Guam (UOG), “we want poems, short stories, essays and other writing from indigenous writers from our region, Micronesia.”

“We’re not in the books! It is the most frustrating thing,” explains Flores, an associate professor of English at UOG who teaches Pacific Islands Literature, “to never see oneself in literature textbooks, as if we didn’t exist.” That’s how this anthology project came about with two writers and teachers tired of feeling invisible in the literature from their part of the Pacific called Micronesia.

“There was Polynesia. There was Melanesia. But where was Micronesia,” says Kihleng when describing her frustration being the lone Micronesian in her graduate Pacific Literature and creative writing classes in Hawai‘i where literature from Micronesia was non-existent. Kihleng is the author of My Urohs, a collection of poetry published in 2008 by Kahuaomanoa Press out of Honolulu.

“We decided it was time to get our region’s literature into the classroom big time; we’ve been left out for too long,” explains Flores.

Flores is the author of a series of three children’s books entitled The Island Cousins Series. The two co-editors of this ground-breaking anthology are hoping that their project will act as a catalyst to fire up other events that will continue to encourage Micronesians not only to write their stories but also seek to be published.

“So send us your work and it may just end up in our book,” say Kihleng and Flores.

The full Call for Submissions is available through various channels:
1) Through the UOG website (www.uog.edu). Click the link to News/Events.
2) By request from [e-mail]
3) At Yokwe Online : Call for Submissions for an Anthology of Micronesian Writing