Mystery author and Alaska resident Dana Stabenow, whose books include the Kate Shugak series, has launched a campaign to raise $1 million to help build Storyknife Writers Retreat for female authors. Stabenow has established a crowd-sourced funding effort on Storyknife's website, as well as her own fan sites, as the initial phase in a larger effort to raise $21 million to cover the costs of developing the property and ensuring its continuing legacy through a $20 million endowment.
The inspiration for Stabenow's effort was a residency she experienced early in her career at the Hedgebrook Farm retreat for women writers on Whidbey Island, Wash. "It was the first time anyone ever acted like writing was a real job," she said. "So far as we can discover, Hedgebrook Farm is the only writers retreat for women in existence."
Explaining the name, she recalled that she "came across mention of storyknives in one of the early explorer diaries and I couldn't rest until I knew more. As a traditional Alaska Native vehicle for storytelling, it is the perfect metaphor for what we hope to accomplish at Storyknife. I'm hoping we get a lot of Alaska Native women writers applying for residencies at Storyknife, too."
