2021-2022 Luce Scholar

Noah Perales-Estoesta is a Hawai‘i-based editor of print and digital books. Born and raised on the island of O‘ahu, he attended the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa as a first-generation student, double majoring in English and Spanish. During his time as an undergraduate, he worked for nearly three years as a copy editor at Mānoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing, a biannual literary publication highlighting fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and drama from throughout Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. He also served on UH’s Student Media Board, where he helped oversee the strategic direction, finances, and policies of the university’s four student-managed media programs. Other extracurricular activities included service on the English Department’s curriculum-development committee and as a writing-center consultant. After graduating in 2015, Noah lived in Brazil as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching English and researching the country’s literature and publishing industry. He edited Becoming Brazil: New Fiction, Poetry, and Memoir, a special issue of Mānoa that gathered a diverse collection of Brazilian literature in English translation. Since 2017, he has worked at the University of Hawai‘i Press, where he oversees open-access and backlist-digitization initiatives, manages the creation and distribution of metadata and e-books, and coordinates grant projects. Noah hopes to build a career around the publication of works by and about globally underserved people.