Literature and artwork in Kula Manu hopes to become an inspiration amidst the diversity of the university, says a BYUH professor and student
Poetry, stories, personal essays and photographs are just some of the literary and artworks featured from students, faculty and community members in “Kula Manu,” a BYU–Hawaii student-run literary journal under the Faculty of Arts & Letters, says the Kula Manu website. “[Kula Manu] is such a good way to represent how diverse we really are, not only where we’re from, but also from our way of thinking and experiencing things,” said Carly Stone.
Then and now
Stone, an adjunct faculty in the Faculty of Arts and Letters and teaching assistant for English 392: Introduction to Literary Editing and Publishing, also known as Kula Manu, said the literary magazine serves as a time capsule for each year it has been published. “It captures the feeling of every year, how we’re concerned about different things then, and how we’re happy about different things today,” Stone said.
She said there were not many literary journals from Hawaii or Polynesia, but through the people who started Kula Manu more than 50 years ago, they felt the power of documentation and its influence on people. “I think the first group in 1962 put together what they thought was collectively who they were at that time,” she continued. Stone said it is really fun to see the different trends in literature and art published in Kula Manu. “In 1962, you can see the version was formal. It had a rhyme scheme, but now, the students are experimenting with grammar like texts and formatting,” said Stone. She said the submissions from each student, and faculty and community members were really creative and different. “They are not just sticking to one way of doing things,” she added.
Myco Marcaida, a senior from the Philippines with a major in communications, media & culture and an editorial team member of the 2025 Kula Manu, said the designs of the magazine have evolved over the years. She said there is much diversity today. “There are a lot of artwork and photographs that are different now because we have more students than before,” she explained. Stone said Kula Manu does not have a definite genre. “Although in the past we’ve always focused on island life and on cultural aspects of what you’re experiencing as students [and] what
the community members are experiencing,” she said. Stone said they have traditionally pushed more themes like diverse experiences such as self-discovery.
Nature has also been part of the theme, especially regarding Hawaii, said Abish Torio, a senior from the Philippines majoring in political science and a member of the 2024 Kula Manu creative design team. “Especially in 2024, we want to focus on calming, introspective and nature themed [journal],” said Torio. As for the upcoming Kula Manu journal, Marcaida said it is leaning more into nature, culture and spirituality. “We came from different parts of the world. We’re a Church school, and we’re on a Polynesian island, so it’s bound to have those in it,” Marcaida said.
Moving forward with technology
Stone said it depends each winter semester who is on the team that handles Kula Manu, what they will put in the journal and how it will look like in the end. “Once they decide what pieces of work they want to include, they will work with authors on grammar and will start publishing and creating the book,” Stone explained. In the 2024 Kula Manu journal, “It is vulnerable to share certain aspects of [this] creative work because it’s not easy to open up to people.” Torio said she felt good with everything she and her design team put into the journal. “I feel like everything we put there has its own charm to it,” said Torio. She emphasized it was handled with love and care as it has its own significance to the journal and the community itself.
Marcaida said the submission of entries for Kula Manu are blind, meaning the team doesn’t know who submitted an entry until it has been selected. The editorial team considered itself as mediators to other teams who have published Kula Manu to ensure unity moving forward with decisions for the magazine, she added.
In terms of using the advancement in technology, Kula Manu has been striving to level up its game, said Torio. “In promoting the journal, we used social media like Instagram and we also contacted the university communication through email and student bulletin to disseminate the information regarding the submissions for Kula Manu,” Torio explained. For the promotion of the 2025 Kula Manu journal, the staff is still working it, said Stone. She said because English 392, or the Kula Manu class, is only offered every winter semester, it makes it a lot harder to manage a website. Marcaida said the Kula Mahu staff “also collaborates with different departments, like Ke Alaka’i, because of its growing followers,” she added.
Stone said the website Kula Manu has is only for the submission of entries and not for actual online publication for now.
Marcaida said one of the biggest challenges of producing the magazine is time management. “There came a point where people will be submitting on the deadline, and we have to go through all of the submissions because we want to be fair even though it’s all blind submissions,” she said.
As for Torio she said it took awhile for them to selection what art and literary works they put into the 2024 Kula Manu journal. “Not everyone on the team agreed on the same things, but we did compromise,” she said. Her team also struggled with time, said Torio. “That is why ours is different from the previous ones. It does not have QR codes of songs or music, etc.,” she explained.
Connecting with people through stories
Kamryn Ivie, a junior from Utah majoring in English with an emphasis on professional writing, said she will be submitting an entry for the Kula Manu 2025. “It’s definitely a process of revising, editing and getting everything to look good,” she said. She said she must feel comfortable with the writings she will be sending for the Kula Manu because if it is accepted, it will be published and seen by people. “It is vulnerable to share certain aspects of [this] creative work because it’s not easy to open up to people,” she said.
Ivie said if she could describe Kula Manu in one word, it would be inspiring. She said it inspires her to improve in her own literary life. “But it also inspires me to learn more about other people’s stories and to recognize that everyone has different ways of influencing others,” Ivie continued. She said because of the inspiring artwork and literary works published in Kula Manu before, and support from her friends, led her to work on her own submission. “I get to share my story, and the things I’ve gone through through writing and especially poetry,” Ivie said. By telling her story through literary works, she said she gets to find common ground and relatability with other people. “I get to be a better writer because I’m writing for an audience,” she explained.
One of Ivie’s hopes for Kula Manu is to see more showcasing of the actual people who are being published in the literary journal. “It can be a way for me to learn more about them and their background, like where they came from and their cultural significance so I can better understand more and empathize with their piece,” Ivie said.
As promoted by the Kula Manu team under the Faculty of Arts & Letters, Kula Manu 2025 will be published by the end of the Winter 2025 Semester. Winners of each category, photography, short stories (fiction and nonfiction), and art, will win $50 to $100. The deadline for submission of entries for the journal was March 4, 2025.