2014 Annual Report

Stories, Facts & Figures
2014 Report to our Community
ADVOCATING FOR EQUAL VOICE
Hedgebrook’s mission is to support 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.
OUR IMPACT: HUNDREDS OF WOMEN, THOUSANDS OF STORIES
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"From the time I started writing as a child, I was drawn to writing
about something that needed changing in the world…"
~Alumna and Board Vice President Sonora Jha
More than 1,500 women from around the world applied for a Hedgebrook residency.
46 were awarded a fully funded stay at the retreat, along with 10 invitational
residencies, 17 teaching artists, 5 singer/songwriters, and 4 playwrights.
Hedgebrook’s programs served more than 300 writers through residencies, Master
Classes, Vortext, Salons, and workshops. The Y-We Write program for young women
hosted 27 young writers for a retreat on Whidbey Island.
Our active social media network grew to more than 25,000 followers and promoted
the publications, readings, performances, and events of more than 400 women
writers in 2014.
Hedgebrook’s events were attended by more than 3,000 audience members in
Seattle, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and thousands more
experienced the books, plays, films, poetry, and music generated in Hedgebrook’s
cottages.
“I thought of writing as a way to become immortal…
Now what touches me the most is when someone tells me that
something I wrote is meaningful to them, resonates with their own
experience, or has helped them in some way.”
~Alumna Minal Hajratwala
Each month, we feature a writer in our blog and newsletter
whose work demonstrates the impact women’s voices can have
on the cultural narrative. These writers embody the power of
Hedgebrook’s mission to support equal voice to achieve a just
and peaceful world.
In 2014, we featured 7 women who author change, including:
Minal Hajratwala Sonora Jha Laila Lalami Jen Marlowe
Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende
Ruth Ozeki
Ayelet Waldman
Visit our blog to read about these and other Women Authoring
Change: www.Hedgebrook.org/category/wac/
OUR LEADERS
FOUNDER: Nancy Skinner Nordhoff
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Amy Wheeler
BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
Mary Willis (President), Sonora Jha (Vice President),
Donna Hall (Treasurer), Ruthann Martin (Secretary),
Abigail Carter, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Sue McNab,
Ann Medlock, Allison Narver, Grace Nordhoff,
Elizabeth Rudolf, Rinku Sen, Eunice Valentine,
Shauna Woods
REVENUE AND EXPENSES 2014
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 McLaughlin,
Honor Moore, Holly Morris, Naomi Shihab Nye,
Ruth Ozeki, Robin Swicord, Monique Truong,
Gail Tsukiyama, Sarah Waters
In 2014, Hedgebrook’s income surpassed expenses for the first time in our history on the path to a sustainable model by
increasing program income to more than 20% of our operating budget and expanding fundraising. The Writing Hedgebrook’s
Future Sustainability Campaign has secured pledges for more than half of its $5 million goal, and Hedgebrook began publicly
introducing the campaign to a broader pool of major donors and supporters in our community at the end of 2014.
ONE WRITER’S STORY: SHOBHA RAO
Thanks to the generous support of a Fellowship from the Elizabeth George Foundation, I was
awarded a four-week Hedgebrook Writers Residency in the spring of 2014. At the time, I'd been
writing for fifteen years. During that period, I had completed three novels and countless short
stories. I had also been continuously submitting my work to literary journals and agents and
publishers, only to be rejected again and again. Then I received the Hedgebrook Residency.
As the hours and days of my residency continued, my productivity soared: I wrote one short story
every week. I read them to my fellow residents, and they convinced me to submit one of the stories to the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, a flyer for which was posted in the Hedgebrook
kitchen. I balked; why would anyone give me a prize, I reasoned. But my fellow residents would
not be deterred. Months later, I won the prize. I won first place. And the winning of that prize set
off a cascade of events so stunning that I still struggle, joyously, to believe them: I was signed to
one of the premier literary agents in the United States, the Sandra Djikstra Literary Agency. And they, in turn, recently sold
my collection of short stories, along with a novel that I am currently working on, to Flatiron Books, an imprint of MacMillan
Publishers. My collection, entitled An Unrestored Woman, about the fates of women during the Partition of India and Pakistan
in 1947, will be released in March of 2016.
I firmly believe that none of this would have been possible without Hedgebrook. Before my residency, I knew nothing of what it
was to be cherished as a writer, as a woman, and as a voice of change.
2014
SEASON
SPONSORS: