Fellowships

Storyknife Writers Retreat offers several fellowship opportunities. These fellowships are sponsored by donors who have the opportunity to specify a community that they would like to support. Applicants get to self-select if they’d like to be considered for a fellowship when they apply for a residency.

If you are interested in sponsoring a fellowship, please reach out Erin Hollowell for more information.

2022

Fireweed Fellowship – Lily Tuzroyluke
Joan Perry Barnes Fellowship – Gwen Florio
Katahdin Fellowship – Anne O’Regan
Mary Ellen State Fellowship – Maya Beck
Golden-Crowned Sparrow Travel Fund – Alegria Rowena
Snow Goose Travel Fund – Monica Macansantos

2021

Fireweed Fellowship – Annie Wenstrup
Katahdin Fellowship – Stephanie Cotsirilos
Snow Goose Travel Fund – Aurora Masum-Javed

Alaska Native Art and Culture Writing Fellowship sponsored by the CIRI Foundation

The Alaska Native Art and Culture Writing Fellowship will be awarded each year to a woman writer whose work focuses on Alaska Native art & culture. Preference will be given to an Alaska Native woman writer who is living in Alaska. At the completion of the project, the selected writer will submit a “Share Your Story” post about the project to The CIRI Foundation’s website. This fellowship includes a $1,000 travel stipend.

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. Indigenous women hold a special wisdom and truth. They are our inspiration in their strength, determination and tenacity. They are the ones who need time to focus on their talents. They are the ones who balance family, protection of place, demands of daily life and who have protected and held the connection of past, present and future. They are the ones we need to listen to. 

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.

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.

Mary Ellen State Storyknife Fellowship for Popular Fiction sponsored by Paula Martin

Mary Ellen State loved to read. She was never without a paperback novel ready to fill a quiet moment. She was widowed when her first daughter was only six months old.  Her second marriage ended in separation, and later divorce, seven years later, after she had two more children.  At the time, being a single woman with children was uncommon.  She managed. Work and childcare were juggled. Dishes and cleaning, painting and mowing were managed. And through her suburban existence, fiction gave her a route to stretch her boundaries.

Fiction gave her more lives to live, more places to visit, more problems to solve, all without added responsibilities.  Her favorite genre was mystery: Agnatha Christy at the ready in a pocketbook. Or she’d delve into a romance, living relationships that she’d never have. When the kids were small, she had to wait for the latest NY Times bestseller fiction, like Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather’, to make it into paperback, but she stayed as current as she could. Her children picked up her reading habit, giving them a path to expand their horizons, to connect to different parts of the world, to appreciate different peoples, while still managing their home fronts.

The Mary Ellen State Storyknife Fellow in Popular Fiction should write to entertain, to set readers in new places, in new situations, in new relationships, to give the reader an escape into the pages of a book.

This fellowship includes $250 in travel funds to be reimbursed at the end of the writer’s residency.

Travel Scholarships

At this time we have two travel scholarship opportunities given to the residents who have the highest travel costs and greatest need.

• Snow Goose Travel Fund sponsored by Astrid and Greg Bear
• Golden-Crowned Sparrow Travel Fund sponsored by Dana Stabenow

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