The Kikiloa Chronicles centers on a San Francisco teen, Hazel, whose unusual friend Kiki pulls her and her friends into a time-traveling adventure that stretches from present day to deep prehistory and ancient Hawaii. Where did the idea for this novel come from?

The idea came in three stages, unfolding over many years.

Hazel came first. She’s named for my playful and loving grandmother, who lived right next door to us – in fact, we could see into each other’s bedroom windows across the driveway. I grew up on a farm in rural Illinois with few kids around, so she was, in many ways, my best friend. She died in her sleep when I was seven, a few hours after she came “To say goodnight to her boys one last time.” I woke to the ambulance lights in the night. I wanted to write a story about her as a young girl, to honor her, to know her better as an adult myself, and to face the pain of that loss.

Then came time surfing. For over a decade, I built technology to help people address their own biases and make better decisions. The challenge skeptics always raised was, “Yeah, but how do you know it’s better?” It’s a hard question to answer directly – we only live one life – and an important one, since our decisions shape our lives and the world more than anything else we do. Too often, people use that unknowability to excuse poor or short-sighted choices. I’m also a bit of a quantum physics geek, so after reading Sean Carroll’s excellent Something Deeply Hidden, it hit me: “Wow, what if I wrote about characters who can actually live a trillion lives at once?”

Finally, and most importantly, came Kiki. It’s hard to describe, but I’ve always known her, always had this playful, ancient woman’s spirit in me, bopping around and philosophizing. Jung would call her my anima, my feminine side. She is a significant part of me, and as Mitochondrial Eve, she’s a significant part of all of us. But even after Kiki leaped into being, the book didn’t take off until I turned over the reins and rewrote the story to let her speak in first person. And that shift from third- to first-person made the book possible, because it’s her voice that keeps the story coherent and moving forward across its many timelines, settings, and events.

Friendship is at the heart of the novel, even as the stakes grow cosmic. What do you think makes friendship such a powerful anchor for a story that spans time and reality?

Love. Friendship is the closest word we have for the sort of love that Kiki is sniffing out by the end of the book. She talks of love as a combination of exciting attraction and nurturing support, and, at the same time, as letting go or breaking free, accepting the counterforce in our relationships that Jung calls individuation. She has a grandiose sense of this love as a force that underlies reality, and her excessive climactic choice is a kind of aftershock of embracing that insight too eagerly. She hasn’t got it quite right, and she knows it. But maybe she’s on to something. What if, deep down, despite missteps here and there, the universe is a friendly place?

What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?

I’ve been working on Book Two of The Kikiloa Chronicles in parallel with this first book, so that’s next up. In the Present Day timeline, it will follow Kiki and Paha’s adventures as they untangle their relationship, Hazel and Akamai as they learn from each other, and Lee, Mila, and the kids as more shenanigans unfold. Those main branches will interweave with the next stage of Kiki’s prehistoric first life and the unfolding of Leilani and Kainalu’s lives in ancient Hawaiʻi. That’s a lot to manage, but I’m aiming to get it out by the end of 2027. This book was on time, so hopefully the next will be, too!

Oh, and I’m producing the audiobook for The Kikiloa Chronicles, which should be out in late 2026.

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