About 6.5 years ago Artistic Director (at the time) Art Rotch asked me to apply to be the resident playwright at Perseverance Theatre through the Mellon Foundation National Playwright Residency Program. At the time we were still in the middle of producing my first...
I turn 40 in 40 days! Eek! I really wanted to make these last days of my thirties memorable. Maybe especially because we’ve been so cooped up for so long. So I’m working through remembering the past, leaving some things behind, planning for the future, and celebrating...
Fifty years ago today the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was signed by Pres. Nixon in what was the most consequential U.S. action of the century for Alaska. (Yes, even over statehood.) Agree or disagree with the actual act, it’s ripple effects for the whole...
This holiday season (or really any time,) I might suggest the PERFECT Christmas gift just may be made, created and sold by an awesome indigenous artist or entrepreneur. Below is a list of some of my favorite Native-owned artists, shops, and companies to purchase from,...
So… guess what? The MAJORITY of new Molly of Denali episodes being released this week are written by Native writers! This is a very good start to Native Heritage Month, and a very good premiere week. 🙂 Today was “Molly and Elizabeth” (written by me, Vera Starbard,...
On our nation’s first official Juneteenth federal holiday, I have mixed feelings. The holiday is not a bad thing – I do think it can have a good impact for future conversations. But it was enacted at the same time state after state are proposing and passing bans...
After a couple of years of talking and planning, and then six months of initial work, we’re starting to get the Tlingit opera off the page and into some vocal chords! Today was the first day that actual, real live actors and singers started working with the first few...
This purposeful lapse “to focus on recovery” is as good a reason as the many, many others to recall Dunleavy. He’s shutting down a major tool that helped us to slow the spread at a time we can very quickly speed the spread again. We are NOT out of a state of...
I have been so proud of how the Alaska Native health system has been handling the pandemic in general, and the vaccine rollout specifically. So imagine my surprise to open the news this morning and see an absolute hit job piece of poor journalism published with a...
Last summer I was “attending” an online funeral and it really hit me how wrong it felt. Death and grief should be a time of community, of gathering, an acknowledgement of our collective grief and the very first moment of healing. So much of what happens with our...
