Connie Hale is a San Francisco–based journalist. Her award-winning features on hula, slack-key guitar, the sovereignty movement, the Hawaiian language, Big Island cowboys, and Spam musubi have appeared in the Atlantic, National Geographic Adventure, Afar, Smithsonian, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, and Honolulu. She has written three books on language and literary style, including the best-selling Sin and Syntax. She has also written a book on hula, The Natives Are Restless, and a book for children, ‘Iwalani‘s Tree.