Storyknife Writers Retreat

August means that autumn is coming…

The fireweed says that summer is drawing to a close at Storyknife.

There are two and a half weeks left to apply for residency at Storyknife. Do you need two or four weeks to devote to your writing? Got a manuscript that needs polishing? A novel idea that you just can’t get your head around? A screenplay that needs silence for its voice to be heard? How about a safe place to explore your difficult memoir? Or a place to look at all your poems and decide if there’s a manuscript in them? Storyknife.

At midnight Alaska Time, August 31st, the submission portal will close for another year. And then the amazing women writers who volunteer to adjudicate will begin the difficult process of reading every incredible piece of writing that is sent to us.

Let me take a moment to invite you to the August Live from Storyknife event on the 22nd at 7pm. This month’s fabulous writers will be sharing their work and you can be in the live audience. This event is co-sponsored by 49 Writers and you can check out all the participants and details at this website.

And as always, we want to thank the many fine folks who support Storyknife with their donations. We have several new recurring donors who are contributing a small amount each month. If you want to join them, we’d love to have you! Every donation helps women writers know that you share in the vision that women’s stories matter.

Take care,
Erin
Storyknife Executive Director

The Wonder of June at Storyknife

It’s been a cold spring outside Storyknife, but a warm spring inside. We’ve hosted twenty-two wonderful women writers so far this year. Each month unfolds with delight. The writers relax into the cycle of their time here, creating community around the exquisitely crafted meals, watching the light change over Cook Inlet, spotting sandhill cranes and moose, identifying the plants that pop up in the gardens beside their cabins. And they engage in the whole process of writing which includes deep thought, late night sharing of work, and time at the page creating their new worlds.

I have two announcements and one invitation to share.

The first announcement is that applications for residencies in 2024 will open on July 1^st and close on August 31^st. A full explanation of the application can be found at https://storyknife.org/how-to-apply/. You will find the link to the application on this page when it goes live on July 1^st.

The second announcement is the creation of a new page of recognition on Storyknife’s website: the Heritage Club of Storyknife. The individuals spot lit on this page have made a commitment of a Legacy Gift to Storyknife. Their generosity will be felt by women writers far into the future and we are very grateful. If you’d like to learn more, head on over.

And an invitation: please join us for Live from Storyknife on June 20^th, 7pm Alaska Time to hear work read by some of June’s writers in residence. 49 Writers co-sponsors this event with Storyknife and hosts it on their website at https://49writers.org/event/live-from-storyknife-june/. Please head on over to that page to read more about who will be reading and how to watch them live. If you want to see the amazing readings from previous months, you can find recordings on this page: https://49writers.org/recorded-events/.

We hope that you’ll have a fabulous rest of the month!

take care,
Erin Hollowell

Executive Director, Storyknife Writers Retreat

Still Springing….

I have exciting news. It’s a busy month for Storyknife and its founder Dana Stabenow! For Dana, her new book Not the Ones Dead, the 23^rd book in the Kate Shugak series, has just released. For Storyknife, Dana had offered a challenge to match her $6,000 commitment to a fellowship and travel scholarship. We’ve raised $2500 toward that goal in just two weeks.

This weekend, we had a wonderful addition to the challenge: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, amazing mecca to all things literary, has jumped in to double the challenge! They will match another fellowship and travel scholarship.

We’re going to give ourselves a little more time to do this – but we’re now aiming for $12,000 by May 15th! We need to raise about $9,500 in the next four weeks to succeed. Please help us. If you are a fan of Dana’s work, help support her dream – Storyknife, which provides the gift of time and space to write that Dana received so early in her career from Hedgebrook.

You could be supporting ANOTHER incredible writer like Dana Stabenow! If you’d like to dedicate your donation to Dana, or to anyone else who has positively impacted your life, please let us know on the donation form.

Thank you Dana and all of the fine folks at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona. And thank you to the wonderful people who have already gotten the ball rolling by donating. We hope you’ll be next to support the amazing women writers of Storyknife.

Take care,

Erin
Storyknife Executive Director

PS If you want to read about an amazing poet that was in residence for the first two weeks of this month – please join us in congratulating Denise Lajimodiere, North Dakota’s first Native American poet laureate. It was our honor to host her here at Storyknife.

Also, please join us for the first online Storyknife Live event, featuring all of the April Writers on April 27^th! More info to come!

Support Women Writers in our Spring Challenge

Spring into!

Right this moment, there are six women writers in residency at Storyknife. Six women bringing words into the world from the quiet and safety of their own cabins. We can’t wait to read what they are creating!

To kick off the residency season, Founder Dana Stabenow is issuing a challenge to match the fellowship and travel scholarship funds that she donates each year. Storyknife fellowships are $5000 to support one writer while in residency. Dana also offers a $1000 scholarship to support the travel of one resident. If you’d like to read more about the other fellowships currently being offered you can check them out here.

If you’d like to sponsor a fellowship, please let me know at ehollowell@storyknife.org. Sponsors of a fellowship are encouraged to specify what kind of writer they’d like to support, name the fellowship, and when possible meet with their fellows. It’s a wonderful way to know that you’re making a difference in a woman writer’s life.

This April, Dana is challenging us to raise $6,000 to match her annual donation. A donation in April not only honors Storyknife’s Founder and her continued support but ALSO will support a woman writer putting her heart on the page.

If you’d like to dedicate your donation to Dana, or to anyone else who has positively impacted your life, please let us know on the donation form.

We’re very excited to kick off the year, planting the seeds of good writing that will undoubtedly blossom into good reading for all of us and a more joyful and hopeful world.

Support Women Writers in our April Fellowship Challenge!

If you prefer to donate by check, please send your donation to Storyknife, PO BOX 75, Homer, AK 99603.

take care and stay safe,
Erin
Executive Director of Storyknife

Looking forward joyfully. Looking behind joyfully.

Dear Storyknife Community,

As the year closes out and the daylight starts to increase, it gives those of us behind the scenes at Storyknife great pleasure to look back joyfully and look forward joyfully.

We are so grateful to the 48 amazing women writers who were in residence at Storyknife in 2022. Our lives have been enriched immeasurably by getting know you, and by knowing that you will be changing the world by putting your stories into it.

We are so grateful to the 625 women who dreamed of coming to Storyknife in 2023. Even though there isn’t room for all of you, we are staggered by your trust that Storyknife has something to offer to you and your writing. We hope that you will continue to write and that we will see you snug in a Storyknife cabin sometime in the future.

We are so grateful to the 52 women writers who will be joining us at Storyknife in 2023. We know that you will bring new energy, new stories, and new beauty to Storyknife, and we look forward to helping you bring your dreams to the page.

AND, we are especially grateful to the 255 people who have donated to support the women writers of Storyknife this year. We cannot do this without all of you, and all of your gifts, small and large, help make it possible for Storyknife to provide women with the time and space to devote to their writing. We are especially grateful to those of you who have given in the last two and a half months so that we could meet our $50,000 challenge grant! Because of you, we made it! This generosity will ring in 2023 at Storyknife on the brightest of notes. Thank you!

May 2023 bring light and love and laughter to all of you. From all of us at Storyknife, thank you. What an incredible year it has been, and what an amazing year 2023 will be!

Take care and stay safe,
Erin
Executive Director of Storyknife

Storyknife Adjudication Results

Yesterday, I was filled with contradictory feelings. I sent out all of the invitations, waitlist notifications, and rejections letters for the 2023 Storyknife season. I knew that there would be excitement from those invited and even those waitlisted, but that there would be an even longer list of those who were bitterly disappointed.

For everyone who is disappointed, please know that I understand, that I have been exactly where you are. Every adjudicator this year expressed to me how difficult the decisions were, how absolutely worthy every applicant was. Several of the heroic women writers who served on the adjudication committee expressed deep sorrow that they had to make tough decisions. They join me in wishing that we had a spot for every woman who applied.

This is the first year that I haven’t read every applicant’s writing sample. At 625 applicants, it just became more than I could sustain. But I trust in the adjudication panel, made up entirely of Storyknife writers from the previous six years, and I know that they took their work seriously. I did, however, read every applicant’s answers to the questions. And I know that each of you touched my heart. Each of you have writing projects that need to be in the world and lives that are complicated and often beautiful.

To all of the folks who have been so generous in supporting Storyknife, thank you. Without you, Storyknife couldn’t open its doors for any women writers. You are the ones that make all of this possible.

And once again, I want everyone who applied to know that at Storyknife, we’re rooting for you. We’re your fans. If you don’t have an opportunity to come to Storyknife in 2023, we hope that you’ll find your way to the desk to keep putting your words down on paper, that you know how important your story is for this battered world.

You’re worth it. Your writing is worth it. We have faith in you.

take care and stay safe,
Erin

Remembering 2022 on Giving Tuesday

As the end of the year starts to come into sight and we begin preparing for 2023, here’s a short video to remind us all of the amazing women writers who have been in residence at Storyknife in 2022.

And while we’re reminding folks, we’ve $13,500 left to raise to meet our $50,000 challenge grant. Every bit helps! And for those of you who’ve already given, Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you again. Donate now before the end of the year and have your donation doubled!

The Importance of Women’s Voices

As we work through the third round of the adjudication process for next year’s residencies, I am reminded of how important women’s stories are and how difficult it is for women to find the time and space to tell them. Each writing sample has its own spark and every woman has a compelling reason to find sanctuary for her work at Storyknife. How I wish we could host them all.

For those that do come, the experience can be life-changing. Grace Anderson, an April 2022 writer residence, writes, “My time at Storyknife Writers Retreat was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had. I was met with such intentionality and from the start which allowed me to really focus on my writing and ideation process. Offering opportunities like this to women writers in such a beautiful setting is such a gift and I hope that so many more people get the opportunity to experience this.”

I’m posting this a few days before “Giving Tuesday,” but please know that I am grateful for the Storyknife community every day. YOU create Storyknife. When you donate, you place the flowers by the beds for the writers’ first night, you put the wild-caught salmon in the kitchen for Maura to prepare, you turn on the light on the desk so a woman writer can work late into the night, and you put the fuzzy blanket on the bed so she dream her way further into her project.

We are 70% of the way toward reaching our challenge grant goal of $50,000. That’s right, $15,000 left to raise to unlock a match of $50,000. So this upcoming Tuesday, or whenever you decide on your annual giving, open your heart to Storyknife. You can help put us over the finish line by the end of the year.

And to those who have already given, thank you so much. What seemed like an impossibility in October is now an attainable goal because of you. Because you agree that women’s voices are important and need to be nurtured, that women deserve the time and space to devote to their work. Thank you.

You can donate electronically through the encrypted form on our website.

Click here to double your donation

If you prefer to donate by check, please send your donation to Storyknife, PO BOX 75, Homer, AK 99603.

Remember, you can help reach that goal of the $50,000 challenge grant! Double your support by giving now.

take care and stay safe,
Erin
Executive Director of Storyknife

An audacious leap forward

The 2022 Storyknife residency season is wending its way to the close. At the end of this month, the cabins will be put to rest for the winter, awaiting the creativity and bustle of April 2023’s writers. The kitchen will fall silent; no more sizzling and bubbling and laughter until next year. In another week, we’ll be finishing up the first phase of adjudication and launching into the second, all in preparation for next year’s writers.

But the office will not be quiet. No, we’ll be working hard to get the word out about a very exciting opportunity. A long-time and stalwart supporter has offered a year-end challenge grant that will put Storyknife over its fundraising goal for this year and give us a good jump on next year. That’s right, this supporter has offered to match $50,000 in funds raised between now and the end of the year! It’s a very audacious goal, but we know that with your help, Storyknife can raise the funds to trigger the match.

Autumn and winter are the giving seasons. At Storyknife, we invite you to consider the amazing women writers who’ve been in residence and know how much your generosity has impacted their lives.

“Storyknife gives a writer something nearly impossible to come by in our clamoring, fast-paced world: stillness. At Storyknife, a writer can simply sit in the soft and ever-changing light, taking in the beauty of Mount Iliamna across the glittering expanse of the inlet. In that stillness, ideas come. Clarity dawns. The words follow. I left Storyknife holding that stillness within, a precious reserve of strength to draw on when the world closes in. My time there is a highlight of my writing life.”
Gwen Florio, novelist and a May writer in residence

Please help Storyknife reach its challenge grant goal. Know that every dollar you donate to Storyknife between now and the end of the year is doubled. But we all need each other to make it over that finish line. Please donate now for the women writers of Storyknife that will create the stories that change our world.

Click here to donate now to double your impact!

As always, you can send checks to Storyknife to PO Box 75, Homer, AK 99603. All donations are tax deductible.

Thank you!!!

Upcoming excitement at Storyknife

So many wonderful things happening at Storyknife this summer!

We’ve had twenty-eight women writers in residence so far. The cabins and Eva’s House are humming with people hard at work, dreaming new worlds and new words into existence.

Each month, Storyknife partners with the 49 Writers, a statewide nonprofit devoted to Alaskan writers, to provide a space for our writers to share their work. “Live from Storyknife” will feature readings by the women in residence that month. If you’d like to see May, June, and July’s session, you can watch a recording on the 49 Writers website: https://49writers.org/recorded-events.

You can join us for August’s session on August 16 at 6pm (Alaska Time). All of the information is on the 49 Writers website at https://49writers.org/.

At the end of August on the 29th, we’ll be having an Open House event at Storyknife. We’ll tell you more about that in next month’s newsletter.

But there is another thing happening in August that is just as exciting: applications for 2023 residencies will open.

Let me take this opportunity to tell you about the application process. Applicants submit a writing sample and answer four questions. (More about this here.) At the end of the application period, the applications are entered into the first round of adjudication during which two people read only the writing samples and do not see the names. If both of those readers give a sample a “thumbs up,” the application goes to the second round of readers. If both of those readers also give the sample a “thumbs up,” it goes to the final round. In the final round, the adjudication panel make decisions based on the writing sample and answers to the application questions, as well as factor in assuring a diversity of genre and demographics of the writers.

Last year, the most consistent comment that I received from the adjudication panel was “I’m having a hard time because these are all good writers.” It’s a wonderful problem to have!

So if you are a woman writer who would like to spend two or four weeks at Storyknife next year (April through October), get ready to apply starting on August 1st on Storyknife’s website.