Allison Warden

Performing Arts, 2013 Anchorage Allison Warden is an Inupiaq performance artist and rapper, whose passion is helping young people explore their own culture… and find their voices and their place in the world. She doesn’t pretend to speak for all Inupiaq – she says they’re not all as weird as she is. Allison raps under the name AKU-MATU. She teaches, performs, writes and raps all over … Read More

Nicole Stellon O’Donnell

Connie Boochever Award, Literary Arts, 2013 Alaska Literary Award, 2016 Fairbanks Nicole Stellon O’Donnell’s first collection, Steam Laundry, won the 2013 WILLA Literary Award for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Passages North, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Women’s Review of Books, Zyzzyva, and other literary journals. Her essays and commentaries appeared in the Anchorage … Read More

Erin Coughlin Hollowell

Connie Boochever Award, Literary Arts, 2013 Alaska Literary Award, 2014 Homer Erin Coughlin Hollowell is a poet and writer who lives at the end of the road in Alaska. Prior to landing in Alaska, she lived on both coasts, in big cities and small towns, pursuing many different professions from tapestry weaving to arts administration. She earned her MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at … Read More

Ben Huff

Visual Arts 2011 Fairbanks Ben was born in LeClaire, Iowa in 1973, spent ten years along the Front Range of Colorado, and finally moved to Fairbanks, Alaska in 2005, where he taught at the University of Alaska. He currently lives, and teaches, in Juneau. Ben’s photography has been exhibited at many venues in Alaska as well as in selected exhibitions in locations all over the U.S. and … Read More

James Adcox

Visual Arts 2011 Anchorage In the eleven years James Adcox has resided in Alaska, he has participated in numerous group gallery showings in Fairbanks, Nome, and most recently the Kenai Peninsula.  As an oil painter, watercolorist, print-maker, and muralist, James has produced artwork for three solo shows, Backroads, Parkas & Plywood, and Arctic Entry.  In 2009, James was privileged to have … Read More

Wendy Gingell

Visual Arts 2011 Anchorage Wendy Gingell is a full time ceramic artist. Her work can be seen throughout the United States, Germany and in Canada. She has exhibited at American Craft Council shows in Baltimore and San Francisco, The Bellevue Fine Arts Museum Arts Fair as well as various other craft fairs throughout the United States and Canada. In 2010 Wendy was chosen as one of 12 of the United … Read More

Michael Conti

Visual Arts 2011 Anchorage Michael Conti is a photographer and video artist based in Anchorage, Alaska.   He was born in San Francisco, raised in Pennsylvania and came to Alaska at age 23 in search of adventure.  He earned a BFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage, and an MFA from the Art Institute of Boston.   He has received numerous awards for his photography and video including Best of … Read More

Yngvil Vatn Guttu

Performing Arts 2009 Homer and Anchorage Yngvil is a composer, musician, theatre director and performer, writer, educator and community activist.  She was born in Oslo, Norway but left to study theatre and music in London, UK.  Yngvil came to Alaska on a theatre tour in 2002 and decided to stay. She ran several youth theatre companies before she decided to focus on her own projects - including … Read More

Schatzie Schaefers

Performing Arts 2009 Anchorage The Connie Boochever Fellowship gave Schatzie Schaefers the opportunity to seek professional mentorship in developing a new full length play for the stage. She worked with Bay Area dramaturg Jayne Wenger throughout the entire process of writing VASHON. Through regular emails, Skype chats, and a reading retreat held in San Francisco, Jayne gave Schatzie  guidance in … Read More

Joan Kane

Connie Boochever Award, Literary Arts, 2009 Alaska Literary Award, 2014 Anchorage Joan Naviyuk Kane is the author of The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife and Hyperboreal. She has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Donald Hall Prize in Poetry, the USA Projects Creative Vision Award, an American Book Award, the Alaska Literary Award, and fellowships from the Rasmuson Foundation, Alaska State Council … Read More