On May 4, a bright and windy day, Storyknife progressed into a new phase – the Building Phase!

Among a crowd of supporters, Dana Stabenow, Storyknife founder, put her decorated shovel into the dirt and broke ground for Storyknife. There was champagne and cupcakes. The first Storyknife fellow, Kim Steutermann Rogers, spoke about the meaning of a writer’s residency in her life and in the lives of all women writers. We were honored to hear also from Nancy Nordhoff, founder of Hedgebrook, the seminal women’s writing residency in the United States. Dana spoke about Storyknife being a dream come true, now fourteen years in the making. 

And what a wonderful dream it is, a place where women have the opportunity to write without distraction, form a supportive community, and are told at every possible opportunity that their writing is important. 

Women writers still struggle for the same representation as male writers. For example, in the last twenty years, Pulitzer Prizes in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have only been awarded to women 28% of the time. If the Pulitzer is the considered the top of the prestige ladder, it’s distressing that women are so poorly represented. 

I hope that you are as committed to elevating women’s voices as we are here at Storyknife. As we build, there will be a great number of opportunities for you to be involved. It is my hope that you will reach out to others that you know would be interested in supporting Storyknife as well as attending a residency here. As Storyknife grows, you can help us grow our community. Feel free to forward this newsletter, or share our website (www.storyknife.org) or Facebook page.

Shovels in, walls up, women writing!

Sincerely,
Erin Coughlin Hollowell
Executive Director of Storyknife

We’d like you to join us in celebrating YOUR GENEROSITY! Yes, all of you, who have been so bountiful with your attention and your donations. $94,276.00 was donated to Storyknife’s year-end fundraising campaign between Halloween and midnight on New Year’s Eve!

Our hearts are overflowing. Your support is greater than financial; it’s positively fundamental. It means that you believe that women writers are worthy of the space and time to devote to their craft. It means that women’s voices, women’s poems, novels, short stories, essays, plays, memoirs, and more, are crucial and significant.

Thank you for being part of Storyknife. We hope that 2019 will be filled with inspiration and joy!

We are pleased to announce that Storyknife Writers Retreat has been awarded a $400,000.00 Tier II Grant by the Rasmuson Foundation. Storyknife has been fundraising for the past two years to build a women writers’ retreat in Homer, Alaska, and the generosity of the Rasmuson Foundation will allow us to go forward with construction in the spring of 2019. The entire facility will consist of six cabins and a main house that is slated to open for residencies in April of 2020.

Storyknife seeks to create an environment of caring and hospitality that will provide the bedrock upon which women writers can feel secure in exploring difficult, experimental, and engaging work. By providing women writers with a place that is beautiful, thoughtfully constructed, and nurturing, Storyknife fosters a level or respect (cultural and personal) for each woman and her creative process. When completed, Storyknife will host six women each month for seven months each year, expanding to year-around operation by the year 2028.

The vision of author Dana Stabenow, Storyknife seeks to support women writers by providing uninterrupted time for development of their craft. In 1989, Stabenow received a residency at Hedgebrook, a retreat for women writers on Whidbey Island in Washington. The profound impact of that residency, and the fact that Hedgebrook receives many more applications than they have spots to host writers, inspired her to develop a similar opportunity for women writers.

The Rasmuson Foundation was created in May 1955 by Jenny Rasmuson to honor her late husband “E.A.” Rasmuson. Through grantmaking and initiatives, the Foundation aims to promote a better life for all Alaskans. At its biannual meeting this November, the Rasmuson Foundation board of directors approved more than $6.5 million in awards. The investments are aimed at communities from Unalakleet to Sitka.

Please join us in expressing our gratitude to the Rasmuson Foundation for their support of women’s stories and women writers.

Katie with her great-great grandson Scotty

Storyknife is delighted to announce that thanks to a successful fund-raising campaign by Katherine Gottlieb, Southcentral Foundation, Carl Marrs, and the Old Harbor Native Corporation, Storyknife’s fifth cabin will be named for Katherine “Katie” Fox Vinberg Kashevarof, late of Seldovia, Alaska.

Katie was born in 1906 and raised in Unga and Unalaska, the eldest of five siblings. She survived the 1920 influenza pandemic which wiped out entire villages in Alaska, the 1942 bombing of Unalaska by the Japanese which destroyed her family home, and the resettlement of the Aluutiq peoples during and following the war, going on to become the mother of ten by birth and double that number by marriage. Her family estimates that “At last count, the descendants including grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren totaled more than seventy-four.”

During 1948 through 1950, Katie owned and operated a restaurant and bakery at Unalaska called “Kate’s Kozy Kitchen.” She had some great recipes for bakery goods. Her grandaughter Crystal writes, “I put her doughnut recipe in the Chamberʼs Seldovia cookbook – try it sometime. It makes ninety doughnuts, and is delicious.”

Katie moved to Seldovia in 1951, where the children grew up and attended school. She worked for many years for Mr. Morris and then Dick Inglima in Morris General Store. She worked also for the Sutterlin & Wendt shrimp plant, the salmon cannery, and Wakefield Seafoods crab processor in Seldovia. She enjoyed cooking, knitting and crocheting, and caring for family and grand children.

In 1975, local fishermen Jack Parks and Bob Ringstad named a 108-foot crab vessel for Katie, the Katie K, and Katie went to Seattle to christen it. The boatʼs owners said they hoped the “boat will be as prolific in producing crab as its namesake has been in producing children and grandchildren.”

Her family writes, “Family was very important to her, and she loved to visit and be visited by family and grandchildren. Her mind ever sharp, she could remember events from the past with ease, and loved to pass on the tales of days gone by. She is remembered with love, and will be missed.”

Storyknife’s founder, Dana Stabenow, says, “I speak for the board when I say we are beyond thrilled and honored to have our fifth cabin named for Katie. With her as one of our guiding spirits, we can’t go wrong.”

From the dinner table…

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.

Let me take you on a little tour of Storyknife.

On the right hand side of the above photo, you can see the road leading to Storyknife. On the left hand side, you can see where the road will end and Eva’s House, the main house of Storyknife, will be built. And yeah, in the background, some seriously charismatic mountains just over Cook Inlet. That’s what the women writers at Storyknife will be looking at from their cabins, from the dinner table, from their desks.

This will be the view from the three cabins on the left side of the main house as you face the inlet. Nice, huh? It’ll be a little greener in the spring and summer.

This will be the view from the cabins on the right-hand side of Eva’s House. It wasn’t even a perfectly clear day, but I want you to envision it.

If you follow us on Facebook, you might have seen posts about all the people for whom we are grateful – supporters, fellows, our founder Dana Stabenow, and now, the land itself that will provide a place for women writers to pursue their craft and build a community that will continue to branch outward. We’d like to take this moment to thank you, individuals who are interested in Storyknife, who are interested in writing, in supporting women’s voices. We’re grateful to be building Storyknife with you.

Remember, donations until the end of the year are being matched by Nancy Nordhoff, founder and benefactor of Hedgebrook. Every donation puts us that much closer to providing a place to honor and nurture women writers. We really want to break ground in April 2019, and with your help, we can.

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.

We are now two weeks into our eight week end-of-year fundraising campaign. Plumb, Level, and Square’s donation has certainly put some gas in our tank, as well as the generosity of other folks who have wanted to take advantage of Nancy Nordhoff’s offer to match all donations to Storyknife until the end of the year. Remember, in your year-end giving, if you donate before 1/1/19, your donation will go twice as far. There are also still opportunities to memorialize an important person with your donation.

Every donation puts us that much closer to providing a place to honor and nurture women writers. We really want to break ground in April 2019, and with your help, we can. We are grateful, so very grateful, for all of you generous people. Thank you!

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.

Dr. Brower grew up in both Barrow, Alaska and in northern California practicing a subsistence lifestyle in both areas.  She has a daughter, Isla, who is 6 and along with her husband, Jesse Darling, lives in Barrow, Alaska where she loves to be close to her culture and community. Brower was named one of Alaska’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2015.

Dr. Brower is active in her community in Barrow, on the North Slope and statewide.  She is Board Member of the Friends of Tuzzy Library and is a co-founder of Leadership:Barrow.  She serves on the Wells Fargo Community Advisory Board, serves as the Vocational/Tribal representative on the Alaska Postsecondary Access and Completion Network, serves on the Alaska Airlines Community Advisory Board, on the Foraker Group’s Operations Board, as a Commissioner for the State of Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education, and is the Chair of the Advisory Board for the Tribal College Journal.

She holds a B.A. Anthropology and B.A. Alaska Native Studies from University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2004, a Masters in Alaska Native and Rural Development from University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2010, and a  Ph.D. in Indigenous Studies, with an emphasis in Indigenous Leadership from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, of May 2016.

Welcome, Dr. Brower!

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.

Katherine Gottlieb is President and CEO of Southcentral Foundation, the non-profit health arm of Cook Inlet Region, Inc. Visiting Scientist at Harvard University. MacArthur Award recipient. CIRI shareholder, Old Harbor tribal member, Seldovia tribal member, mother of six and grandmother to many more.

In the spring of 1988, the Anchorage Daily News ran a story about a retreat for women writers on Whidbey Island in Washington state called Hedgebrook. Dana Stabenow read it and thought, How wonderful for some lucky writer. Katherine read it and called Dana and said, “You should apply for that.” Dana said, “Are you crazy? They’d never take me.” Katherine called again the next day and said, “Did you apply?” And the next day. And the next day. Her diligence worked, because Dana applied, was accepted, and became one of Hedgebrook’s first residents in October 1988.

In 1993, Dana Stabenow’s first Kate Shugak novel (Fun fact: Shugak is Katherine’s mom’s maiden name) was nominated for an Edgar Award. Katherine went to New York City to accompany Dana at the awards ceremony. Before they went downstairs to the banquet, she gave Dana an ivory storyknife brooch which Dana wore onstage when she won. Hedgebrook, to which Katherine nagged Dana to apply, was the inspiration for Storyknife, and, with her gift of that brooch, she named it, too. It seems only a natural progression of events that she is now a member of Storyknife’s Board of Directors and we are so honored to work with her.