Constance Hale

Constance Hale is a Hawaii-born, San Francisco-based journalist who has been writing about Hawaiian culture for more than twenty-five years. Her award-winning features on slack-key guitar, the sovereignty movement, the Hawaiian language, Big Island cowboys, and Spam sushi have appeared in the Atlantic, National Geographic Adventure, Afar, Smithsonian, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and Honolulu. She has also worked as a staff reporter and editor at the Oakland Tribune, the San Francisco Examiner, Wired, and Health magazines. She has written three books on language and literary style, including the best-selling Sin and Syntax, and her eight-part series on writing a sentence is on the New York Times “Opinionator.” Hale started dancing the hula at seven and performed each year in May Day festivals at Hale‘iwa Elementary School, switching to ballet and jazz dance while at Punahou School and Princeton University. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a master’s degree from UC Berkeley. She has studied hula with Patrick Makuakāne for twenty years and edits the hālau’s annual newsletter, Kaholo‘ana.