"It seems to me that if you write here and you don't write about Hawai'i, there's no other publisher who will publish you," says Amber Mui Fah Stierli. And so she made her own book.

Three and a half years in the making, "Undrawn Lines" is a landmark collection of short fiction by Hawai'i-based writers. The anthology, a handsome paperback, includes some exceptionally crafted work, such as a story about an Iowa couple's ill-fated honeymoon at an Ihilani-like resort by University of Hawai'i doctoral candidate Tamara Pavich, and a searing look at the cultural crossed wires on a tour group's trek up Mount Kilimanjaro, by The Advertiser's Michael Tsai.

Like many of the writers included in the book, Stierli is a product of the UH English department and worked at UH's Manoa Journal.

"I was doing editorial and typesetting, learning all these different aspects of publishing," says Stierli in her quiet, low voice. But it was a part-time only position, and upon graduation "I had to quit or get a second job."

In the midst of her dilemma, Manoa editor Frank Stewart suggested she get her business license. I just decided I might as well make a book. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I didn't know just how much." And Monkeypod Ink, Stierli's very own publishing company, was born.

"There's a huge amount of talent here," Stierli says. "I don't think we see 15 percent of it."

In March 2003, she put out a call for submissions in newspapers and also approached "friends and people whose writing I respected." She received about 25 works, and culled them down to 15.

"It's nice to have the opportunity to diversify the kind of work that gets produced here," says Tsai, whose stories have appeared in Mainland journals such as Washington Square and Fugue. "The perception is what's produced here is not good enough — and I'm as guilty of that as anyone. But this is where I live, my writing community. I just think that not everything needs to be about iso peanuts and language resistance. As a writer, my concerns aren't confined to the (local) genre."

That's not to say that Monkeypod Ink excludes stories of local life. Maile Gresham gracefully probes the motivation of a tita to punch out a girl in the bathroom at Sandy's. Slam poet Brenda Kwon's "Everyday Practice" captures the early-morning ruminations of a 25-year-old who doesn't "watch movies that aren't in English or buy strange musical instruments just to see what they sound like," as he wrestles with singledom, 10th-grade memories of Marcy Takamine and a hostile cat. Jeffrey Ryan Long examines the habits of that Honolulu subculture known as the postgraduate communal house.

Besides editing the work, Stierli dealt with the nuts and bolts of print and production.

"I wanted to print it here, but the estimates I got were three times the estimates of Mainland competitors," Stierli says. She shelled out $7,000 of her own money to have the book printed in Ann Arbor, Mich. On O'ahu, the job would cost "easily $18,000 for the same thing."

Asked whether "Undrawn Lines" is just the first of Monkeypod Ink series, Stierli, who is the books manager at used-media emporium Jelly's in 'Aiea (her boss, owner Norm Winter, has a piece in "Undrawn Lines"), says: "I'm not sure. I'm thinking of doing other books. But I did spend everything on this one."

For now, she just hopes "people get a different perspective on what local writing is. Just enjoyment."

Reach Lesa Griffith at lgriffith@honoluluadvertiser.com.