Donald Carreira Ching has spent more than a decade helping students at Leeward Community College find their voices. Now, the longtime creative writing professor is sharing his own, through a new short story collection that sheds light on the hidden struggles of life in Hawaiʻi.
Blood Work and Other Stories , released by Bamboo Ridge Press, features 17 intimate and emotionally layered stories. Ching explores family, cultural identity, environmental threats and the weight of intergenerational trauma. His characters live in a Hawaiʻi far removed from tourist postcards—navigating grief, disconnection and erasure while holding tight to the connections that root them in resilience and community.
"Many of the stories are about characters struggling to find a sense of home and community, a sense of family and connection, and to do so while working through many of the challenges we all face living in Hawaiʻi," said Ching who grew up in Kahaluʻu. "I want readers to live with these characters, to experience the neighborhoods and side streets they may not be familiar with or may avoid."
One story follows a man who breaks into his childhood home before it becomes a vacation rental. Another centers on a daughter coming to terms with her mother's memory loss. All are rooted in places Ching knows well, places shaped by development, colonization and resilience.
Guiding new voices
Ching earned his PhD in English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and said writing didn't come easily at first, and it took time for him to realize that good writing is about practice, patience and persistence.
Those lessons shape the way he teaches at Leeward CC, where he encourages students to work through creative challenges and claim their voices on the page.
"In my classes, I try to help students to see the value in the writing and learning process, give them opportunities to work through the challenges and recognize their strengths, and perhaps most importantly, encourage them to develop their voice," said Ching.
Blood Work and Other Stories is available now through Bamboo Ridge Press.
Ching will hold a public reading of the book at Mānoa Public Library on Saturday, August 16 at 10 a.m.
The post New book unpacks Hawaiʻi's struggles, hidden stories first appeared on University of Hawaiʻi System News .
