Calling all aspiring writers! The chance to sharpen your skills plus gain an edge in the writing world is here. Hoʻoulu is UH Maui’s online student run newspaper and on Monday, September 26th, they will be hosting a soft meet in Open Hale from 10:30AM – 1:00PM. Any student interested in earning extra income should drop by for a quick chat and sign up! Ho‘oulu is our schools source of media coverage- showcasing eventful highlights, informative staff interviews, writers’ opinions and student recognition segments. Anything and everything relevant and pertaining to the UH Maui community can be found here. There are openings for photographers, content creators, and web developers as well. Opportunities are fruitful and will be discussed at the meeting. There are no prerequisites to attend this meeting.
As an aspiring writer myself, I was curious and wanted to know more about this opportunity. What other benefits besides income did this endeavor offer? I was able to catch an interview with Ho‘oulu’s Student Editor Aysha Jarnesky. By the time we were through, I completely understood Ho’oulu’s mission and beneficial appeal.
Q: What is Ho‘oulu about?
“Here at Ho‘oulu, we are UHMC’s online student run newspaper. Our goal is to source information and make our college aware of it. The pandemic put a pause on a lot of things, but we’re ready to make a comeback and hit the ground running. We have plans in motion to gain reach with our UH Maui community. We’ve secured a bulletin space in the Library for veiwage, and we’re recruiting writers and staff. We want to get things going again, it’s been tough for everyone. We’re about being a vital news source for our school and our community, we find information, interview people, take photos, things that news crews do. Then we share all that information with UH Maui students and prospective students. Information about different school groups and activities, events that may be happening, or new things like the Pa’ina just opening back up. We like to showcase our staff a lot, we like to showcase the instructors and what they’re all about. We showcase student achievements and interesting student pursuits. Anything related to and about our school. I take instructions from our administrators about what they’d like to see more or less of. Such that if there was someone new who was curious about our school, our online paper would give them a pretty good idea of what to expect here. School folks- we want to get you more coverage. Our goal is to drive traffic towards our school and to get students more involved. Anything that a newspaper does, that’s what we do at our UH Maui College Community.”
Q: Would you encourage all forms of writers to join Ho‘oulu?
“Yes, we want all writers to come and exercise the freedom of speech! Writers often move forward after their time here, so we are always on the lookout for dedicated students with passion. I’m kind of a mainstay because I’m gonna be at UH for quite awhile. Even if you move forward from the four years here, as long as you’re with any UH campus, you can still write for us. We put it out to all the writing classes to pass on the information to their students. We would love long term writers, some writers just come and turn in a couple articles here and there for extra cash, but we would definitely love people who would want to stay on and be regular writers. We are building a strong news team. As for types of writers, off topic, I am also the editor for our Nā Leo Literary Review, where we collect art works and any creative pieces, including poetry, song, short story, photographers, or any medium. Even in that aspect we encourage student participation. It’s another way to earn extra cash! If you feel that you’re more so a news article writer, or more of a kind of institutional writer, then go ahead and join Ho’oulu, but if you are more of a creative writer, then go ahead and turn in creative works to Nā Leo Literary Review and also earn cash.”
Q: Besides the money aspect of writing, what are other benefits of writing with Ho’oulu?
“If you are aspiring to be in any sort of writing field in the future, this is a great opportunity for building a portfolio. For me as an editor, I know I’m building a portfolio and from here forward all of my works are online. You will be published on our website and its great for a student to be able to say they’ve published on a college platform, because it’s professional publishing. Ultimately what students are doing at this stage in college is building a repertoire, and becoming who they are. It looks good, and if you want an edge going into the writing world, this is a really great opportunity to build your repertoire. It is certainly appealing on a resume.
Q: Do you have any last message you want to say?
“Yes, as the editor we are calling all writers to give it a try. If you are feeling a little insecure or afraid, this is the place where you can make mistakes, where you can try your hand in writing with little to no backlash because we’re college. We are here to learn and sharpen skills. Everything goes past me, if I see anything that needs fixing or changing, I’ll let you know before you even get your work out there. Come and join us, whether it’s Ho’oulu, or whether you want to take a more artistic route with Nā Leo Literary Review, or even both- those things will be valuable. As for our meeting, we would love to see everyone there at Open Hale. It’s a casual soft meet from 10:30am till 1:00pm, students can drop by anytime between those hours. We highly encourage you to come check it out.”
This brief interview with Aysha really encouraged me to invest in this further. Not only to improve my resume and expand my repertoire, but to also make a general improvement to my own writing skills and to better my chances in succeeding in my desired field of writing. To all my hoapapa and fellow kānaka hakuʻōlelo, I hope this article sparks the flame of curiosity within you to join us in this upcoming meeting. Mahalo, a he lā maikaʻi.
