Last week, a bright light left the world. Nancy Nordhoff, one of Hedgebrook’s founders and amazing visionary and philanthropist passed away surrounded by her wife Lynn Hays and her family and friends.
Storyknife is one of the seeds that Nancy helped to nourish. Her friendship and mentorship of Storyknife’s founder Dana Stabenow is one of the deep reasons that Storyknife came into existence.
Dana writes:
I first met Nancy Nordhoff when I was accepted for a residency at Hedgebrook. This was back in 1989, the first year they were open, and Nancy was still very much hands on. In fact, that first night of my residency, at dinner I started to get up to help clear the table, and she said, very firmly, “Sit down. You’ve already done your work for the day.”
That was the first time anyone had ever acted around me like writing was a real job. It was also the first time I’d ever met other actual women writers. And during my two weeks at Hedgebrook I remained in a continual state of amazement that someone, anyone had built something so beautiful in such a beautiful place specifically for us. That kind of faith is infinitely empowering. I was never going to fail as a writer after Hedgebrook.
The day I left I told her, “I don’t know how I’m going to do it but I am going to do something like this in Alaska.” She invited me back for Hedgebrook’s 25th reunion and I told her then that I was ready to start moving on a women writers retreat in Homer, Alaska. She was silent for a moment, and then she gave me one of those patented Nancy Nordhoff looks, stern and steady, and said, “You understand, what you build in Homer won’t be the same as Hedgebrook. It will be something different.”
And then she and at her behest the team at Hedgebrook spent the years between that day and 2019 when we started to build supporting us, sharing their advice, their experiences, steering us around the kinds of traps that materialize in front of anyone who starts a nonprofit and especially one benefitting women. Through it all, Nancy was always ready to talk, to listen, and to support the organization as a donor. There were plenty of times when I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into but Nancy could always talk me back down to the ground.
She believed in me. She believed in me when she accepted me as a resident at Hedgebrook in 1989, she believed I would succeed as a writer when I left, and she believed in me when I built Storyknife. I would not be the person I am without Nancy Nordhoff in my life, and Storyknife wouldn’t exist if Hedgebrook had not led the way.
Now she’s gone, but the light from her star in my personal firmament is still shining. It always will.
Please join us in holding Nancy, her wife and family and friends, and our sisters at Hedgebrook in your hearts.
Storyknife Writers Retreat 