Kaui Hart Hemmings grew up in Hawaii and has degrees from Colorado College and Sarah Lawrence College. A former Wallace Stegner fellow, her work has appeared in The Sun, Story Quarterly, Zoetrope, Best American Non-required Reading, Best American New Voices, the L.A. Times and the New York Times. Her new novel, The Descendants, is currently being filmed in Hawaii by Sideways director, Alexander Payne, and it stars George Clooney. Kaui is also the author of House of Thieves, a compilation of short stories, which is the first book she published.