On Saturday, May 4, 2019, after a fifteen-year gestation and following a three-year capital construction fund-raising campaign, we broke ground on Storyknife, a retreat for women writers in Homer, Alaska. Here’s what I said that day, and here is our website for more information.

I used some of Rita Jo’s leftover plants and some volunteers from my own yard to fill in this spot behind Carol. In a spring or two there will be glorious clumps of sunshine yellow troilus, soft mauve geraniums, bright blue Jacob’s ladder, and a mystery columbine interspersed with graceful green ferns. A forest spot to delight the eye, and a non-labor intensive one, too.

If you’d like to sponsor your own garden spot on the Storyknife walking trail, get in touch with Erin at ehollowell@storyknife.org. She’ll be happy to talk to you about benches along the trail, too.

And the sun is still setting to the right of Augustine so it isn’t officially winter at Storyknife yet!

How you can support Storyknife:

*Become a sustaining donor. A sustaining donor is one who donates the same amount every year. This can be anything from $50 a year to $10,000 a year. You can divvy that up into twelve monthly charges to your credit card if you like. Click here to donate online, or our executive director, Erin Hollowell, will be happy to talk to you about it at ehollowell@storyknife.org.

*We are also promoting Storyknife sponsorships, i.e., a donor would sponsor a writer in residence at Storyknife by donating $5,000 per year for three years for a total of $15,000. In exchange, the donor can if they wish name the genre of the writer. Say you are interested in supporting women writers who write in crime fiction (or sf, romance, political science, biographies, you get the idea). Storyknife will notify applicants to apply for the Your Name Here Fellowship. Other writers may apply for general residencies, which are also available for sponsorships. Our executive director, Erin Hollowell, will be happy to talk to you about it at ehollowell@storyknife.org.

*We welcome donations of appreciated stock, and we have a brokerage account set up to accept such donations. Betty, the second cabin, was built with appreciated stock. Our executive director, Erin Hollowell, will be happy to talk to you about it at ehollowell@storyknife.org.

*By 2020 we’ll have an endowment fund ready to accept all of the above as well as testamentary donations. We plan on a ten-year fundraising campaign for the endowment, for a minimum goal of $5 million.

Thank you, Friends of Storyknife!

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