(BIVN) – Volcano author Tom Peek has won the 2024 Nautilus Gold Medal for Fiction in the small press category for his latest novel, Mauna Kea: A Novel of Hawai‘i.

Nautilus Awards, founded in 1998, are given to “better books for a better world . . . that support conscious living & green values, wellness, social change & social justice, and spiritual growth”, according to a news release announcing the award.

The Mauna Kea novel was also a finalist for the 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize, received Honorable Mention in the Hoffer General Fiction category and was a finalist for their da Vinci Eye Award for its cover art and design.

From the news release:

Peek’s novel illuminates one of today’s most celebrated indigenous rights struggles—the battle to protect Hawaiʻi’s most sacred mountain—written by an insider directly involved in that struggle for three decades. Seven years of research, writing, and multiple pre-publication reader reviews, including by Native Hawaiians and scholars, went into the novel’s creation.

“Tom Peek’s Mauna Kea captivated us from the moment we read it after it was submitted to us for publication,” Easton Studio Press’s Founder and President, David Wilk, said, “and we are proud to be the publisher of this book and many others that have won awards during our twenty years of independent publishing. All of us who worked on this amazing novel are gratified now that Tom Peek’s work is getting the attention it deserves.”

“I feel honored that these national literary judges have given Mauna Kea such high marks,” Peek said. “I hope the novel’s timely narrative gives readers—especially those not from the islands—a deeper understanding of Hawaiʻi’s vital traditions and its longstanding cultural and political tensions.”

Peek, an early astronomy guide for the Mauna Kea observatories who later joined the mountain protectors movement, has long urged American astronomers to heed pleas of Native Hawaiians and other islanders opposed to further development of the mountain’s summit. He wrote the first national article about the longstanding clash, in 1998 for Sky & Telescope magazine, and numerous later commentaries for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and other U.S. dailies.

The novel has drawn praise in Hawaiʻi and on the continent. Susan Najita, a Honolulu-born University of Michigan Associate Professor of Literature and Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies, said, “Peek’s compelling and deftly woven plot lines, keen sense of pacing, and finely-etched, authentic characters combine to bring to life the world of the Mauna Kea Protectors Movement.” Longtime Sierra Club leader and Mauna Kea activist Nelson Ho called it “An authentic, eye-opening novel that lifts the veil on the ancient traditions and modern political intrigues that underlie the longstanding controversy over telescopes on Mauna Kea.”

The author’s previous award-winning novel, Daughters of Fire, illuminated the impacts of post-statehood tourism and real estate development and was widely praised for its authentic portrayal of Native Hawaiians and the state’s complex—often sordid—sociopolitical landscape. It won a Benjamin Franklin Award for popular fiction from the national Independent Book Publishers Association. Maile Meyer, founder of Native Books/Nā Mea Hawaiʻi, said of the novel, “Peek’s understanding of place, culture, and current issues is deep and respectful without being heavy-handed. . . . a terrific read.”

Photo of Tom Peek photo courtesy C. Robbins

About the Author

An award-winning novelist and acclaimed writing teacher, Tom Peek lived his early life on an island in the backwaters of Minnesota’s Upper Mississippi River. After hitchhiking by boat through the South Seas, he settled on Hawaiʻi Island three decades ago. There he’s been, among other things, an astronomy and mountain guide on Mauna Kea, an eruption ranger and exhibit writer on Kilauea, and an insider participant in the efforts to protect both sacred volcanoes. The Contemporary Pacific Journal has called Peek “a storyteller extraordinaire, cut from an older cloth seldom seen today.”

About the Novel

Mauna Kea: A Novel of Hawai‘i is a gripping tale of clashing passions—science and spirituality, vengeance and compassion, fear and courage—set atop 14,000-foot Mauna Kea, realm of revered goddesses and star-wise explorers. A young vagabond running from America’s turmoil is forced to confront his own grief and rage on an embattled holy mountain in the Pacific. There he encounters a mysterious domain of ancient mountain deities and the Native Hawaiians who revere them, including two wise elders who take him under their wings and a young woman with a world-weary heart akin to his own. Through his startling experiences with them—and a motley cadre of other islanders—he learns the power of aloha and discovers an untapped reservoir of faith and courage that rekindles his hope in himself and in the world we share.

The book includes beautiful pen-and-ink illustrations by renowned nature artist John D. Dawson and evocative cover art by longtime Hawaiʻi Island oil painter Catherine Robbins.