MacKinnon Simpson was raised on a family farm in Pottersville, in rural northern New Jersey.
He was a father of two and tutu kane to a pair of rambunctious grandkids. He settled in Honolulu, where his occupations ran the gamut from motorcycle sales to cable TV executive.
Simpson self-identified as a writer since the third grade. Ultimately, he returned to writing and wrote his first book, WhaleSong, in 1986. WhaleSong was the first real book written and designed on an Apple Macintosh computer, and was called by the head of Time-Life Books “the book which changed the face of American publishing.”
He went on to write, design, and publish more than 25 large-format illustrated books. In addition to books on Hawaiʻi’s history, he wrote silliness for the Tiger Magazine, the occasional radio jingle, a computer manual, and all the exhibits for a maritime museum.