Oh this time of year with its Black Friday, its Cyber Monday. All the ways that holidays have been co-opted to be about consumption, buying and buying more. And yet, sometimes it feels as if even when we’re surrounded by stuff, we’re empty.
And now Giving Tuesday. About five years ago, my family decided that our holiday tradition of gift-giving wasn’t very satisfying. Instead, we decided we’d donate in each other’s names to charities that mean something to each of us. For my sister who volunteers in a soup kitchen, a donation to the organization that runs it. For my brother, a donation to Michael J. Fox’s Foundation. And for me, a donation to Storyknife.
I’ve noticed that Storyknife isn’t the only nonprofit vying for your #GivingTuesday dollars. In fact, when I opened my email this Monday, there were no fewer than a dozen other good causes asking for my support.
Here’s the deal – I hope you’ll donate to Storyknife, either on Giving Tuesday or any other day until the end of this year. Our incredible matching donor, Nancy Nordhoff, founder and benefactor of Hedgebrook, isn’t limiting her largesse to one day.
I hope that you’ll give, not because we pestered you into it, but because you really believe in the vision that women writers deserve to have their work fostered, respected, elevated. And believe that Storyknife intends to do just that – has already done so with the eight amazing fellows we’ve hosted already. I think of the writing by women that has lifted me up when I felt like no one understood, Virgina Woolf, Annie Dillard, Toni Morrison, Jane Hirshfield, Barbara Kingsolver, Octavia Butler, Alice Hoffman, Ursula Le Guin, Mary Oliver, Terry Tempest Williams… I could keep listing for a long time.
So if a woman writer ever lifted you up, if your mother or auntie gave you a little faith in your story, if you are one of those women writers who cram your writing in between small children, errands, laundry, and sleep, consider donating to Storyknife as an investment.
I sometimes stand on the Storyknife property and look out at the mountains, imagining lighting the candles at dinner for six women writers who will change the world, month after month after month. Your donation is the match that lights that fire.
A few weeks ago, I wrote to tell you how board member Katherine Gottlieb inspired Storyknife founder Dana Stabenow to apply to Hedgebrook and gifted her with the Storyknife that inspired our name. In so many ways, Katherine has been a wellspring for Storyknife. When Deborah McNeil offered to donate $25,000 for the well and water distribution system for Storyknife and dedicate it to Katherine, we could think of nothing more appropriate.
Deborah is the manager of the Plumb, Level, and Square fund that was created to honor her husband Tim McNeil and his mother Dorothy. As Deborah passed along to us: Plumb, level, square. Three words describing carpentry, and three words describing both the character and lives of Dorothy McNeil and her son, Tim McNeil. Plumb, because they were upright and experienced life fully; Level, because they lived truthful lives; and Square, because they were fair, honest, and direct people.
Storyknife is beyond grateful for the support of Deborah and the Plumb, Level, and Square fund. The opportunity to honor Katherine Gottlieb in this way is incredibly special. Katherine has not just inspired and supported Dana’s dreams, but so many people in the state of Alaska through her role as President and CEO of Southcentral Foundation, the non-profit health arm of Cook Inlet Region, Inc., not to mention her participation as a CIRI shareholder, Old Harbor tribal member, and Seldovia tribal member.
It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to Dr. Pearl Brower, our newest board member at Storyknife. We are growing! Dr. Brower is currently the President of Iḷisaġvik College, Alaska’s only Tribal College. She has been with the College since 2007 working in External Relations, Institutional Advancement, Student Services, and Marketing. She has served as President since 2012. Prior to working for the College Dr. Brower managed an education and culture grant for the North Slope Borough for three years and worked as the Museum Curator of the Iñupiat Heritage Center.
We are proud to announce that Katherine Gottlieb is the newest member of Storyknife’s Board of Directors. Prior, she was a member of our advisory council. She has been part of Storyknife’s history even before the actual organization came into being.
“Sometimes having no expectations is the best way to approach the unknown. That is how I traveled to Homer, and the Storyknife Residency; an overpacked suitcase (I wore the same pants every day for two weeks, fancy skinny jeans were left untouched) and light on expectation. As a result, I experienced an abundance of riches. I didn’t even think about Homer’s inevitable beauty before I got there. I wanted to be awed, surprised even, and I was. The three volcanoes outside my window put things into perspective very quickly. If I needed any more reminding of my personal insignificance it was ready and waiting for me the moment I saw the mountains and the water. I had to shed the notion that I was somehow indulging myself by getting lost in Alaska for 14 days to focus on me and the story I wanted to write. That lingered a bit too long, three days to be exact, and is a by product of being a mother and a woman. The center was not going to collapse because I was in my cabin writing and minding my own business. This understanding was just as important as the 21,000 words I wrote in two weeks. The cabin, the water, mountains, wildflowers I bought at the Farmer’s Market, Erin and Dana all gave me permission to be. Yes, I needed that permission, even though I have been writing for half my life and producing work that sees publication. Everything is slower in Homer and people smile at you, make eye contact. Dana introduced me to locals and people were naturally warm. Even though I was alone most of the time, I didn’t feel alone. But I felt space, I felt my chest expand.
Back to my smallness in the face of natural beauty and the wildness of things: it’s good, it’s necessary for me to be reminded of it, so I can create. I kayaked on the bay and was exhausted by the end of it, but my lungs were filled with fresh salt air and the next day I sat down and wrote a chapter that I am proud of. I was the straggler in the kayak group. It was rainy and cold, and the currents were strong, and I couldn’t get a good picture of a cheeky baby otter, and once again, my smallness hit me 
in the face, along with the salt water and how short my arms were. And then I felt it, something I had not felt in decades, peace. Everything around me was saying, it’s going to be ok. Whatever “it” was. It didn’t last. I came back to reality, however I achieved clarity on a few things because of all the silence I was surrounded by and produced 21,000 words. Had I stayed another two weeks I would have finished the first draft of my new novel. Of that I am sure. I must come back. It’s healing. And necessary.”
Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart’s Traffic (Arktoi/Red Hen Press, 2009) and recombinant (Kelsey Street Press, 2017).They are a Kundiman, Lambda and Callaloo Fellow and a member of the Macondo and Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundations writing communities. Chen is also the co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press, 2011; AK Press 2016) and Here Is a Pen: an Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets (Achiote Press, 2009). Their work has appeared in The Best American Experimental Writing, The &NOW Awards 3: The Best Innovative Writing, and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics. A poetry editor of the Texas Review, they currently teach creative writing at Sam Houston State University. 
Sharbari Ahmed’s fiction has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Asian Pacific American Journal, Catamaran, Caravan Magazine, Inroads, and Wasafiri among others and is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly. She was on the writing team for Season One of the TV Series, “Quantico” on ABC. Most recently she wrote the screen adaptation of Mitali Perkin’s Middle Grade novel Rickshaw Girl. Her debut book The Ocean of Mrs. Nagai: Stories was released in November 2013 by Daily Star Books. She is a Tribeca All Access Fellow for her screenplay Raisins Not Virgins. She is on the faculty of the MFA program at Manhattanville College and the Film Television MA Program at Sacred Heart University. She was born in Bangladesh and raised in New York, Connecticut and Ethiopia and lives in Darien, CT.
Casandra Lopez is a Chicana and California Indian (Cahuilla/Tongva/ Luiseño) writer who’s received support from CantoMundo, Bread Loaf and Jackstraw. She’s been selected for residencies with SAR and Hedgebrook. Her chapbook, Where Bullet Breaks was published by the Sequoyah National Research Center and her poetry collection Brother Bullet is forthcoming from University of Arizona press. She’s a founding editor of As Us and teaches at Northwest Indian College.
