Kaui grew up in Hawaii and has degrees from Colorado College and Sarah Lawrence College. A former Wallace Stegner fellow, she now lives in San Francisco with her daughter and her husband, Andy Lautenbach. She works at the Writer’s Grotto (www.sfgrotto.org) a cooperative workspace of writers and filmmakers in downtown San Francisco. Her work has appeared in The Sun, StoryQuarterly, Zoetrope, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Best American New Voices and the L.A Times. The Descendants is her first novel.