Nisei Veterans Memorial Center hosts author JacLynn Herron, Jan. 21

Author JacLynn Herron is the next speaker in the Nisei Veterans Memorial Center’s “An Afternoon with the Author” series at 1:30 p.m. this Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023.

“It’s perhaps the most unique connection between Maui and Minnesota since Spam. It’s certainly as original. It’s the story inside the story that makes it so special and so local,” according to an event announcement.

The event is free and open to the public both in-person and via Zoom. Doors open at 1 p.m. To register for the in-person event or to receive the Zoom log-in details, call 808-244-NVMC (6862) or go to www.nvmc.org.

Here’s the backstory from Herron’s newest novel, Rewriting Marguerite:

In 2015, Marguerite, an octogenarian known by her readers and friends as MJ Burdick, encounters more than writer’s block when she attempts to write her latest Minnesota-based mystery. A freakish bike accident, the latest defining moment, has claimed not only the life of her husband, Harry, but also her creative spirit. Supported from afar by a quirky writing group, she ventures alone to the tropical island of Maui to retap her creative source. Using a 75-year-old gift from her mother to revisit her past, MJ attempts to revive her writer’s soul by reflecting on the joys, strengths, sorrows, and shadows of her Minnesota upbringing. Her journey inward to reclaim self-acceptance and resiliency is nurtured by the Sato family, local Maui residents whose elder is a World War II Nisei veteran with a Minnesota connection.

More about the author:

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JacLynn Herron not only lost her mother to dementia, but also witnessed the strengths and flaws of the eldercare system that was responsible for her mother’s care. Believing in the power of story, she crafted her memoir, Singing Solo: In Search of a Voice for Mom, as a cautionary tale about the realities of nursing home care.

She has been committed to sharing that story with readers and audiences at a variety of places: bookstores, libraries, book groups, dementia conferences and elder groups. The book prompts discussion of the question: How can we (as individuals, families and society) promote quality-of-life until the very end of life?

Her second book, Rewriting Marguerite, is a novel set in her two favorite places, Minnesota and Maui. Questions for book groups are included in the book and lead the readers into discussions of life’s defining moments and the importance and cultivation of resiliency and friendship.

Thanks to technology, NVMC’s “An Afternoon with the Author” invites published fiction and non-fiction writers from around Hawaiʻi and the mainland into our homes. By means of Zoom, the Center hosts a different author each month to talk about their work, the story behind the story, and their personal journey on the way to having their work published. Zoom then makes these presentations available to visitors around the globe, as well as here at home on Maui.

Chosen because of their ties to the Japanese-American experience, each author’s work connects individuals with larger truths and ideas about society.

NVMC’s mission is to ignite the potential in people by inspiring them to find the hero in themselves through the legacy of the Nisei Veterans. The Nisei Veterans Memorial Center is a nonprofit organization that aspires to a world where people act selflessly for the greater good.

NVMC owns and manages an intergenerational campus on Go For Broke Place in Kahului that serves as a home for Kansha Preschool, Maui Adult Day Care Center’s Oceanview facility, the
Stanley Izumigawa Resource Center and the NVMC Education Center.

To learn more, visit www.nvmc.org.