On Monday, November 16, gather at The Speakeasy at Capo’s Deli with local authors and readers to celebrate great stories, shop signed books, and raise a glass!
Join us for a bookish party celebrating the fantastic women writers of the DMV and Storyknife Writers Retreat! Based in Homer, Alaska, Storyknife gives women writers the time, space, and supportive community to explore their craft. In that same spirit, we’re gathering for a casual, festive evening to connect, share stories, and support one another.
Grab a cocktail, meet local writers, buy or sell signed books, and discover new writing and reading opportunities.Come for the 6 p.m. reading featuring Storyknife’s DC alumni: Kat Chow, Melanie Hatter, Carol Mitchell, Lisa Page, and Lesley Younge. Stay for the 7 p.m. book market and mixer!
Melanie S. Hatter is the author of Malawi’s Sisters; The Color of My Soul; and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss. Her forthcoming novel All the Pain We Endure will be released by 1455 Press in November 2026.
Natasha Somji’s (she/her) work centers around the infinite ways we are grieving the selves we could not become and how this breaks us and forces us to reshape ourselves. Her writing is supported by VONA, Vermont Studio Center, and now Storyknife. She resides in Atlanta with her partner and dog.
Tanya Tyler is Diné from Sanostee, New Mexico on the Navajo Nation. She is an MFA candidate studying creative nonfiction and fiction at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her work has been published in Yellow Medicine Review and included in other anthologies. She currently resides in Albuquerque.
Gretchen Wehmhoff, an Alaska journalist and publisher of The Skagway News, has received multiple awards for her humor columns and features on Alaskans. She continues to write for Alaska-based magazines, as well as nonfiction, poetry, and memoir. Her current project explores the history of Girl Scouting in The Last Frontier.
Storyknife is grateful to the individuals and foundations who support fellowships. A fellowship is not just an opportunity for a writer to have designated time and space to devote to their craft, it is an affirmation of the importance of their work. Fellowship recipients are working at the top of their craft.
The Aglauti Fellowship sponsored by Pearl Brower, Marilyn Romano, and Rhonda Sleighter
In Iñupiaq, Aglauti means “to write it down,” “to record it,” “to write for him/her.” The Aglauti Fellowship will be awarded to an Alaska Native or Indigenous writer. Preference will be given to writers working on bi-lingual or multi-lingual texts (not translation) or in the field of children’s or young adult literature. We’d like to encourage the next generation of writers, inspire, encourage, support women writers; it’s all about a ripple effect.
Barbara G. Peters Fellowship for Crime or Historical Fiction sponsored by Robert Rosenwald
The Barbara G. Peters Fellowship will be awarded each year to a writer of crime fiction or historical fiction. Barbara G. Peters founded the globally renowned Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1989, and in the years since has become a supporter and mentor of crime fiction authors the world over. She and her husband, Robert Rosenwald, founded Poisoned Pen Press, a publishing house which was acquired by and merged into Soucebooks in 2018. Barbara has been recognized by Mystery Writers of America, Malice Domestic, and twice by Bouchercon for extraordinary service to the mystery genre.
This year’s Barbara G. Peters fellow is Jeneé Skinner.
This fellowship is named for Maud “Evangeline” Rasmuson Atwood who was born in Alaska in 1906. Steeped deeply in journalism and Alaska history, Evangeline Atwood was a civic organizer and philanthropist, organizing such community groups as the Cook Inlet Historical Society and the Anchorage Chapter of the League of the Women Voters. She was a past president of the Anchorage Women’s Club, the Alaska Federation of Women’s Clubs, and the Alaska Statehood Association. This fellowship is for an Alaskan writer.
This year’s Evangeline Atwood fellow is Ariadne Will.
Fireweed Fellowship sponsored by John and Rika Mouw
The Fireweed fellowship will be awarded each year to an Alaska Native or Indigenous woman writer under the age of 45. The sponsors, John and Rika Mouw, have chosen to lift the voice of an Indigenous woman writer in a world where First People’s voices continue to be drowned out by an ongoing history of colonization, and further so, for Indigenous women, in the largely patriarchal society in which we live. Indigenous women have been the traditional and ongoing protectors of water and land for future generations
Joan Perry Barnes Fellowship in Crime Fiction sponsored by Dana Stabenow
Dana Stabenow’s mother, Joan Perry Barnes, was a voracious reader. There were always books around the house and on the boat, usually cheap paperbacks which was all anyone could afford back then. She let Dana read anything she wanted to, and because she read a lot of mysteries, Dana did, too. Dana sponsored a Storyknife fellowship in crime fiction in her name because while she would have read everything written by all Storyknife fellows, she would have reached for the mysteries first. The Joan Perry Barnes Fellowship will be awarded each year to a woman writer who pursues crime fiction.
This year’s Joan Perry Barnes fellow is Laurie Dove.
Katahdin Fellowship for Maine Writers sponsored by Patrice Krant
The Katahdin Fellowship will be awarded each year to one woman writer from the state of Maine. Sponsor Patrice Krant is a 1978 University of Maine graduate who has retired to Alaska, but part of her heart will always reside in Maine. This gift is her way of sharing her adopted home with women writers from Maine, and she knows that the cross-pollination of these two magical places will be fruitful for both communities.
This fellowship supports a short story writer or personal essayist. In recognition of the power of these shorter forms, Jacqueline Carr sponsors this fellowship in honor of this work.
The Rona Jaffe Foundation Fellowship is intended to support the four-week residency of an emerging woman writer who will be a first-time resident at Storyknife. For the purposes of this Fellowship, “emerging writers” are defined as those who are as yet unpublished to those just completing full length manuscripts. Competitive candidates have usually begun to publish their work in literary journals. This fellowship is given to the most promising candidates based on their writing sample.
The Rona Jaffe Foundation fellow for this year is Yvette DeChavez.
And next year, we are pleased to announce two new fellowship sponsors.
The Carol Shields Prize Foundation Fellowship will be awarded each year to a writer selected to continue Storyknife’s mission of supporting women writers from historically excluded communities.
The Koyaanisqatsi Fellowships (2) will be awarded to writers exploring the personal, social, environmental, global and spiritual challenges of creating equilibrium in today’s world. Koyaanisqatsi comes from the Hopi understanding that all life exists in relationship and that well-being depends on living in balance with the natural world, one another, and the spiritual dimensions of life. The word itself is often translated as “life out of balance,” reminding us that imbalance can exist within a culture, community, relationship, or a single life and that whenever certainty replaces curiosity, speed replaces reflection, or consumption replaces connection, we drift toward koyaanisqatsi. Restoring balance begins by asking questions and exploring what makes our ecosystems whole.
Learn more about the fellowships, their sponsors, and recipients here.
Ten years ago, the very first writer was halfway through her stay at Storyknife. Kim Steutermann Rogers was cozy in the Fredrica Cabin, right next to founder Dana Stabenow’s home. Kim was the perfect person to be Storyknife’s first writer in residence: kind, lovely, outgoing, and completely comfortable being on her own in a little cabin with minimal support.
When Dana and I started talking about how to raise the money to build the six cabins and main house that comprise Storyknife, I told her that it’s easier to raise money for a program that already exists than for something that is only a good idea. The fact that she was gracious enough to donate the use of her guest cabin for three years is a real testament to her investment in the vision of a women’s writing retreat.
Ten years. It took Dana, the Storyknife Board, and me three years to raise the funds to build Storyknife. For the last six years, we’ve hosted 48 to 54 women writers for either four-week or two-week residencies. By the end of this October, 280 amazingly talented, wonderful writers will have spent time at Storyknife.
It’s been an amazing ride so far. Maura, Katie, and I have loved getting to know each month’s writers and learning how best to support them. I get to watch their eyes widen when they see the amazing lunches and dinners Maura creates for them. I hear them exclaim over the beautiful muffins and cookies Katie bakes. I have the honor of hearing them read at Live for Storyknife and of being the person who reminds them that their writing brought them all the way to Homer, Alaska, and will carry them farther still.
Storyknife exists because Dana Stabenow believed that women writers deserve the time and space to devote to their craft. It thrives because the staff excels at creating a place that is both nurturing and flexible, always growing and changing as we learn our craft. And it will continue far into the future because the Storyknife Board of Directors and I work very hard to expand our base of incredible people and foundations who are willing to donate to support this place and help make it stable and successful.
Thank you for being part of the community of Storyknife for next ten years! I just know that the amazing writers who have been and will be in residence here will be publishing work that changes the narrative and changes the world.
Please register to join us on Zoom on Thursday, September 17 at 6pm Alaska Time for September’s Live from Storyknife event. Participants will read from their current work. A recording of the event will be available from this page afterwards.
Maureen Bhutong Boyd holds an MFA from Pacific University. Her nonfiction is an Editor’s Pick for Solstice Journal’s 2026 Contest. She has read her work for APAture, Kearney Street Workshop’s Festival for AAPI Writers. Her writing has also appeared in Catamaran Literary Reader, The Pinch, Bellingham Review, and Joyland Magazine.
Ching-In Chen is author of Shiny City, recombinant (Lambda Literary Award ), The Heart’s Traffic: a novel in poems; to make black paper sing and Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters. They collaborate on Breathing in a Time of Disaster, exploring breath through meditation, health and environmental justice.
Yalonda JD Green is a transdisciplinary artist whose work encircles the lives and afterlives of Black women. A Cave Canem fellow and daughter of Detroit, her work thrives in ink and air, appearing in Inkwell, Swamp Ape Review, ART SICK, Black Warrior Review’s Playground Boyfriend, and forthcoming in The Indianapolis Review.
Dr. Dipika Mukherjee is the author of eight books. Her award-winning fiction and poetry is translated into nine languages and she received an Esteemed Artist Award from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. She teaches at the Graham School at University of Chicago.
Anna Smist (Sac & Fox Nation, Deer Clan) writes on contemporary North American Indigenous art and artists with work appearing in First Americans Art Magazine and Art Focus. She is currently based in Oklahoma City.
Please register to join us on Zoom on Thursday, August 20 at 6pm Alaska Time for August’s Live from Storyknife event. Participants will read from their current work. A recording of the event will be available from this page afterwards.
Rhoni’s Blankenhorn’s poems have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Slowdown, Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Margins, Adroit, and elsewhere. Her full-length debut, Rooms for Dead and the Not Yet, won the Trio Award and was published by Trio House Press last summer.
Emmy Her Many Horses is a Sicangu and Oglala Lakota writer, educator, musician, maker, and Auntie who hails from Oceti Sakowin Territory. Born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation of South Dakota, she writes rez kid stories for rez kids, refocusing the lens on the beauty of growing up in her homelands. An emerging writer, her work has been published in the Yellow Medicine Review and the anthology Our Stories: Past Present, Future. She is a 2024 Degroot Foundation Courage to Write Writer of Note.
Casandra López is a California Indian (Tongva/Luiseño) and Chicana writer. She’s the author of the poetry collection Brother Bullet. She is an Assistant Professor at UC San Diego and a Tongva language learner.
Minnie Phan is an artist based in Oakland, CA. Her past clients include Google, the San Francisco Museum of Modern, and Chronicle Books. Working at the intersection of art and social impact, she has been recognized by The New York Times, Society of Illustrators, and Eisner Awards. Her proudest accomplishment is collaborating with Pulitzer Prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Priscilla Solis Ybarra writes where identity and environment intersect. Author of Writing the Goodlife: Mexican American Literature and the Environment and co-editor of Latinx Environmentalisms, she is Professor and Mellichamp Chair in Racial Environmental Justice in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Mistee St. Clair is a Rasmuson Foundation and Alaska Literary Award grantee, and published by Terrain.org,The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Common, and more. She lives in Lingít Aaní (Juneau), where she hikes, writes, and wanders the mossy rainforest. Her collection Reconciliations was published by Empty Bowl Press in 2026.
Lesley Younge is a multi-genre writer, poet, and educator living in Silver Spring, Maryland. She has authored several books for young people including Nearer My Freedom, A-Train Allen, and two forthcoming books about the nonviolent life and legacy of her childhood pastor James Lawson. Visit teacherlesley.com for more information.
For those of you in Homer or nearby, please join us on Tuesday, August 25 at 7:00pm at Grace Ridge Brewing to hear Rhoni, Emmy, Casandra, Minnie, and Mistee read from their work LIVE! This event is free and open to the public!
Please check back on this page or the How to Apply page for recordings of the sessions after they take place.
Join us for the second session on Monday, July 27, from 10:00–11:30am AKDT (11:00am PDT, 12:00pm MST, 1:00pm CST, and 2:00pm EST), join us on Zoom for an information session about Storyknife residencies, the application process, and how to prepare your strongest application. The session will be led by Storyknife Executive Director Erin Hollowell, and a recording will be available afterward. Feel free to drop in anytime during the session to ask questions.
Recordings of these sessions will be posted on this page!
Please register to join us on Zoom on Thursday, July 16 at 6pm Alaska Time for July’s Live from Storyknife event. Participants will read from their current work. A recording of the event will be available from this page afterwards.
Laura Maria Censabella’s play Carla Cooks The War won the Saroyan/Paul Human Rights Playwriting Prize. Her play Paradise was produced by Viola Davis and Julius Tennon in Los Angeles, and Beyond Words was a recent Boston Globe Critic’s Pick. She teaches at the School of Drama, The New School.
Laurie L. Dove is an award-winning journalist and the bestselling author of Mask of the Deer Woman (Penguin Random House). Her next book, Cry of the Rain Crow, releases in December, followed by a nonfiction book, Twice Gone: The Vanishing Indigenous Women of the Heartland. Connect at LaurieDove.com.
Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, garnering residencies with Millay, Vermont Studio Center, and more. Author of poetry collections Ordinary Cruelty and apocrifa, and deputy publisher and cofounder of Generous Press, Amber Flame finds joy singing the blues, making art, and raising an awesome kid in Tacoma, Washington.
Carol Mitchell is the author of the forthcoming short story collection A Good Haunting (Akashic Books 2026), the novel What Start Bad a Mornin’ (Central Avenue, 2023), and of nineteen books for children. She holds an MFA, teaches writing at George Mason University to support her writing habit.
Monica Sok is the author of A Nail the Evening Hangs On and Year Zero. In her current project entitled, The Octopus Tree, she mythologizes her relationship with her refugee mother while exploring themes of belonging and survival. Sok teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.
Cecilia Villarruel is a first-generation American from Chicago’s southside. She misses the widespread availability of banana seat bikes and old-timey dialing on rotary phones. She is an Assistant Professor in Latino Studies at Indiana University Northwest in Gary.
July 14, 6:00-8:30pm in person at the Pier One Theatre on the Spit. Register by Friday 7/10.
Do you write for the stage, or have you always been curious about trying?
Join award-winning playwright and July Storyknife resident Laura Maria Censabella for a playwriting session designed for writers of all experience levels. You’ll be guided through writing a scene that can become part of a current play—or the play you’ve always wanted to write. Or simply come because you’re curious to explore a new form in a welcoming, no-pressure environment.
Please bring several sheets of paper or a notebook, a pen, and an open heart.
Laura Maria Censabella writes to build bridges between disparate people, cultures, ideas, and even species. The overarching question at the heart of her work is: What do we owe ourselves, and what do we owe each other to live in community? Her work includes Carla Cooks The War, winner of the Saroyan/Paul Human Rights Playwriting Prize; Paradise, produced by Viola Davis and Julius Tennon in a sold-out production in Los Angeles; and Beyond Words, about the extraordinary relationship between a human being and a bird, a Boston Globe Critic’s Pick. She is a three-time recipient of Playwriting/Screenwriting Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and has won two Daytime Emmy Awards. Laura also teaches at the College of Performing Arts at The New School, where she received the Distinguished University-Wide Teaching Award.
Please register to join us on Zoom on Thursday, June 18 at 6pm Alaska Time for June’s Live from Storyknife event. Participants will read from their current work. A recording of the event will be available from this page afterwards.
Kai Coggin is the Inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Hot Springs, AR, and author of five collections, most recently Mother of Other Kingdoms (Harbor Editions, 2024). She is an arts educator, master naturalist, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry.
C. I. Ibiam is a PhD candidate and Vice Presidential Fellow in the University of Utah’s dual English-Creative Writing program; she’s also the founder of Creative Writing News. A Cornell MFA alumna, her literary honors include recognitions from the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Storyknife, and Hedgebrook. Her work appears in Aster(ix) Journal, MTLS, Mukana Press Anthology, ANA Review, and elsewhere. She is currently completing her novel, which explores the intersection of immigration and disability. She is the Storyknife Kenai Lake Fellow for 2026.
Didi Jackson is the author of the poetry collections My Infinity (Winner of the 2025 Tennessee Book Prize) and Moon Jar. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Bomb, The New Yorker, and World Literature Today among other journals and magazines. She is the recipient of the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee and teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University. Most recently she completed her certification as a Tennessee Naturalist.
Carolyn Kremers writes poetry and literary nonfiction, is a lifelong musician, and lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. Her books include Upriver, The Alaska Reader, and Place of the Pretend People: Gifts from a Yup’ik Eskimo Village. She was a Fulbright Scholar twice at Buryat State University in Ulan Ude, Russia.
Angela Peñaredondo is an inter-transdisciplinary poet, artist and educator. They are the author of nature felt but never apprehended (Noemi Press) and All Things Lose Thousands of Times (Inlandia Institute, Hillary Gravendyke Book Prize). They live and create on unceded ancestral homeland of the Tongva people, Tovaangar in southern California.
