Jeddie Kawahatsu is a yonsei/shin-nisei (fourth-generation, new second-generation) Japanese American and Chinese American writer, multidisciplinary artist, and educator raised in San Francisco, California and currently based in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Born to a Japanese Konko minister father and a Sansei Japanese American, half-Chinese mother, her work is deeply informed by cultural memory, generational storytelling, migration, and myth.

In 2018, she moved to Honolulu, where she reconnected with her passions for dance, painting, and writing. Her creative practice exists at the intersection of poetry, memoir, historical fiction, folklore, and fairytale, blending visceral sensory detail with themes of ancestry, identity, womanhood, and survival. Drawing inspiration from travel, oral histories, bedtime stories, and “stranger than fiction” anecdotes, she is particularly interested in amplifying voices and experiences historically left untold.

A tactile and embodied artist, Jeddie’s work is shaped by her love of movement and sensory experience — finger painting, burying her feet in the sand, dancing hula and zouk, touching every soft fabric she passes. She is currently working on a poetry collection exploring love and identity, as well as a novel inspired by Japanese folklore and her grandmother’s experiences during WWII incarceration. Outside of writing, she enjoys upcycling thrifted clothing, baking sourdough bread, and traveling in pursuit of deeper cultural connection and shared storytelling.