Tia Ballantine is a bit of a wanderer, a painter and a poet who has lived here, there, and elsewhere, but who currently sleeps and writes in the wao kele – somewhere between the wao kanaka and the wao lani, in the wet forest above Honolulu. Her poetry has been published in various journals, including  Spillway, Snakeskin Webzine, Poets Canvas, Five Fingers Review and The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought,  and has been anthologized in Sam Hamill’s  Poets Against the War  and in Winter Gifts,  published in Scotland by Happenstance Press. She has also published short stories and essays.