Award-winning local author Lurline Wailana McGregor visited the freshman class at Hawaii Preparatory Academy’s Gates Performing Arts Center on Sept. 22 to talk about her book, “Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me.”
Award-winning local author Lurline Wailana McGregor visited the freshman class at Hawaii Preparatory Academy’s Gates Performing Arts Center on Sept. 22 to talk about her book, “Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me.”
HPA freshmen are reading the coming-of-age story in their Foundations class. McGregor told the students she did not start off being a writer.
Her “turning point” came when she sought advice after a co-worker asked her to write an obituary. She was advised to “write from the heart.”
McGregor originally wrote “Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me” as a movie script, but decided to turn the script into a novel.
“It took me 3 1/2 years to write the script and six weeks to turn it into a novel,” she said.
“Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me” made the Honolulu Advertiser’s best-seller list three times within three months of its release. The book also won the National American Indian Library Association Award for Best Young Adult Fiction in January 2010.