Constance Hale has covered Hawaiian dance for the Los Angeles Times, sentence magic for the New York Times, and San Francisco politics and culture for national newspapers and magazines. Her books on language and literary style--including Sin and Syntax and Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch--are used in classrooms across the country and the globe. She lives in California and Hawai'i but grew up on the beach at Mokule-'ia with many friends among the ironwood trees.