OUR IMPACT - Hedgebrook · Now, 25 years later, ... Song Plays Last, opens off-Broadway in 2013....
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Hedgebrook supports visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come. Through our Writers in Residence and Master Class programs on Whidbey Island, and our public programs, festivals, events and publications, we nurture the creative process of a flourishing global community of women authoring change, and bring their extraordinary work to readers and audiences worldwide. RAISING WOMEN’S VOICES OUR IMPACT Stories, Facts & Figures 2012–2013 Report to our Community > > > > > “Why is Hedgebrook important? When we started, I believed it was because we nurture the writer. Now, 25 years later, I believe it’s how that writer’s work— what she creates here—impacts all of us.” ~ founder Nancy Nordhoff Each writer in residence at Hedgebrook experiences our unique radical hospitality: a cottage of her own, meals thoughtfully prepared by our chefs from the organic garden, and the space and time to create. More than 1000 women writers applied for our 2012 Writers in Residence program. Of that international pool, 50 were awarded fully-funded Hedgebrook residencies. We also hosted 32 Alumnae, 16 celebrated writers by invitation, as well as 7 playwrights nominated for our Women Playwrights Festival and 5 female musical artists nomi- nated for our Songwriters Residency. 108 writers participated in Master Classes and Salons in 2012, programs designed for writers to hone their craft and find the space to tell their stories. This earned income generated more than 10% of our operating budget. More than 50% of the writers who come to Hedgebrook are women of color, and they come from all over the world. Literally millions of people experience the books, plays, films, poetry and music quietly generated in Hedgebrook’s cottages each year. In 2012 Hedgebrook’s live events were attended by more than 3,000 audience members. “We believe that storytellers shape our culture. So ‘who gets to be our storytellers’ in the cultural conversation is a pivotal question. If we want to see positive change, we need to be hearing equally from women.” ~ Executive Director Amy Wheeler WOMEN AUTHORING CHANGE “So women can keep adding to the great literature that lives and breathes on our country’s library shelves. People don’t understand the sheer amount of time writing takes and there are constant distractions. Hedgebrook provides this time. And to be surrounded by other artists is a balm and a call to arms. In 2013, both quiet and privacy feel radical. I got both at Hedgebrook.” Quiara Alegria Hudes came to Hedgebrook in 2006 at the beginning of her playwriting career. Since then, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful and was a Pulit- zer finalist for her play Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, two plays from a trilogy exploring the tortured coming of age of a young Puerto Rican marine who served in Iraq. The last play in the trilogy, The Happiest Song Plays Last, opens off-Broadway in 2013. She also wrote the book for the Tony award winning Broadway musical In the Heights, shortlisted for the Putlizer. We asked Quiara, “Why do you believe it’s important that Hedgebrook exists—for you, for all women writers, for the world?”
Transcript of OUR IMPACT - Hedgebrook · Now, 25 years later, ... Song Plays Last, opens off-Broadway in 2013....
Hedgebrook supports visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come. Through our Writers in Residence and Master Class programs on Whidbey Island, and our public programs, festivals, events and publications, we nurture the creative process of a flourishing global community of women authoring change, and bring their extraordinary work to readers and audiences worldwide.
RAISING WOMEN’S VOICES
OUR IMPACT
Stories, Facts & Figures2012–2013 Report to our Community
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“Why is Hedgebrook important? When we started, I believed it was because we nurture the writer.
Now, 25 years later, I believe it’s how that writer’s work—what she creates here—impacts all of us.”
~ founder Nancy Nordhoff
Each writer in residence at Hedgebrook experiences our unique radical hospitality: a cottage of her own, meals thoughtfully prepared by our chefs from the organic garden, and the space and time to create.
More than 1000 women writers applied for our 2012 Writers in Residence program. Of that international pool, 50 were awarded fully-funded Hedgebrook residencies. We also hosted 32 Alumnae, 16 celebrated writers by invitation, as well as 7 playwrights nominated for our Women Playwrights Festival and 5 female musical artists nomi-nated for our Songwriters Residency.
108 writers participated in Master Classes and Salons in 2012, programs designed for writers to hone their craft and find the space to tell their stories. This earned income generated more than 10% of our operating budget.
More than 50% of the writers who come to Hedgebrook are women of color, and they come from all over the world.
Literally millions of people experience the books, plays, films, poetry and music quietly generated in Hedgebrook’s cottages each year. In 2012 Hedgebrook’s live events were attended by more than 3,000 audience members.
“We believe that storytellers shape our culture. So ‘who gets to be our storytellers’ in the cultural conversation is a pivotal question.
If we want to see positive change, we need to be hearing equally from women.” ~ Executive Director Amy Wheeler
WOMEN AUTHORING CHANGE
“So women can keep adding to the great literature that lives and breathes on our country’s library shelves. People don’t understand the sheer amount of time writing takes and there are constant distractions. Hedgebrook provides this time. And to be surrounded by other artists is a balm and a call to arms. In 2013, both quiet and privacy feel radical. I got both at Hedgebrook.”
Quiara Alegria Hudes came to Hedgebrook in 2006 at the beginning of her playwriting career. Since then, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful and was a Pulit-zer finalist for her play Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, two plays from a trilogy exploring the tortured coming of age of a young Puerto Rican marine who served in Iraq. The last play in the trilogy, The Happiest Song Plays Last, opens off-Broadway in 2013. She also wrote the book for the Tony award winning Broadway musical In the Heights, shortlisted for the Putlizer. We asked Quiara, “Why do you believe it’s important that Hedgebrook exists—for you, for all women writers, for the world?”
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Ruth Ozeki, novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest, came for a 2010 residency with a big manuscript she’d been working on for a decade. Her first two bestsellers (My Year Of Meats and All Over Creation) had been warmly received, and readers and critics eagerly awaited her 3rd novel. But she was stuck. If she didn’t have a breakthrough during her 3-week stay, she said she’d “…give the manuscript a proper burial, burn it in the bonfire and delete it from my hard drive.”
Happily, Ruth did have a breakthrough! In Meadowhouse, she found the quiet space to take what is known as a “backward step” in Zen meditation practice: pausing and shifting your focus to the present moment, and quieting your mind. When she did, her novel flowed.
Released in March 2013 in five countries and three languages, Ruth’s novel was recently named to the prestigious 2013 Man Booker Shortlist. The NY Times calls the story”fresh and immediate, occasionally searingly painful.” Ruth’s beautiful book is inspiring creativity in others: the Bookshop Band in Bath, England wrote two songs inspired by the novel, and Ruth says she hears regularly from people who are coping with grief and suffering and find the story helpful.
At Hedgebrook, Ruth now leads popular Hedgebrook Master Classes and Salon workshops on meditation and writing, mentoring other women writers as they take a backward step and discover their stories. On her international book tour, she is inspiring others to unplug from the internet and reconnect with their creative minds. What happened for Ruth at Hedgebrook is having an impact on everyone who encounters her and her spell-binding novel.
ONE WRITER’S STORY
REVENUE AND EXPENSES 2012
*Hedgebrook operates on a cash basis. 12/31/2012 totals do not include a $25,000 grant that was pledged in 2012 but paid early in 2013.
Hedgebrook’s income grew to 97% of our expenses in 2012 (up from 40% just 5 years ago). New revenue streams including Master Classes and Salons now generate more than 10% of our annual income, and fundraising income grows each year. In 2011, we initiated a quiet launch of our Writing Hedgebrook’s Future: Sustainability Campaign to generate $5 million over the next 5 years. In addition to establishing an endowment and funding much-needed capital projects, major multi-year “bridge gifts” from individuals to the Campaign are supplementing operational support as we grow annual income to a sustainable level by 2017.
CREATIVE ADVISORY COUNCIL: Gloria Steinem (Co-chair), Carolyn Forché (Co-chair), Dorothy Allison, Nassim Assefi, Carole DeSanti, Eve Ensler, Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth George, Mary Gordon, Jane Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Pramila Jayapal, Sarah Jones, Ellen McLaughIin, Honor Moore, Holly Morris, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ruth Ozeki, Robin Swicord, Monique Truong, Gail Tsukiyama, Sarah Waters
BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Shauna Woods (President), Mary Willis (Vice President), Grace Nordhoff (Treasurer), Abigail Carter (Secretary), Donna Hall, Pramila Jayapal, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Ruthann Martin, Ann Medlock, Elizabeth Rudolf
OUR LEADERSFOUNDER: Nancy Skinner NordhoffEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Amy Wheeler
