The Island Institute's Writers' Residencies provide opportunities for four writers to each spend a month in Sitka, Alaska, pursuing their own work and getting to know this unique island community in the forested coastal mountains of Southeast Alaska.

Residents' time is largely their own to pursue their work, but each person is expected to take part in a community activity approximately once a week (more if desired). These might include public readings, talks to school or college classes, writing workshops, radio interviews, discussions with special interest groups, or other events appropriate to the writer's background.

Each resident is provided living accommodations including a kitchen and a stipend of $300 toward food costs. Travel to and from Sitka, as well as all other incidental costs, are the responsibility of the resident.

Three positions are filled by application. There is a single application deadline of April 15 for positions in September of that year and January and April of the following year. The November position each year is reserved for an international writer who comes to Sitka from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

The program aims to encourage the work of both promising and published writers who share the interests of The Island Institute - the nature of vital communities, the social and ethical web of human relationships and connections to the natural world, the global effort to shape sustainable human cultures.

Testimony about the program:

"A gift of uninterrupted working time is immeasurably valuable to any creative endeavor. There are three ways, however, in which The Island Institute's gift differs from other residency programs-
. . . the astonishing landscape of the southeast Alaska panhandle
. . . the community involvement which the Institute fosters
. . . the interdisciplinary nature of the residency program."
Alison Deming,
English Department, University of Arizona, Tucson

"I came to Sitka with high hopes for a quiet and beautiful place to write. . What I found was a community of intellectuals and activists who were truly inspiring, impressive beyond even the landscape in the intensity of their involvement with ideas, the breadth of their perspective, their moral energy, their commitment to communities, both cultural and ecological."
Kathleen Dean Moore,
Philosophy Professor, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon

The Island Institute's 25th Sitka Symposium, FrameWork: Shaping an Enduring Culture, will engage participants in some of the urgent and constructive questions we face as people living together on an imperiled planet. We welcome your experience, insight and knowledge. As a starting point, we offer the following parameters for discussion:

• How can we change the framework that constrains us in habitual patterns of thought and practice that endanger our future?
• What aspects of our worldview need to change in order for us to shape a culture based on long-term human needs and the well-being of the planet?
• What assumptions need to be challenged in order for us to create and inhabit resilient cultural and ecological communities?
• What are the durable traditions and sources of wisdom that can guide us?
• What practical manageable-scale actions might we imagine and carry out in collaboration with others to help us transform ourselves and our culture?
• What new stories will help us and our children and grandchildren answer the enduring human questions, Who are we in relation to the world? How, then, shall we live?

• Where Poetry Meets Prose-- a writing workshop taught by Gary Holthaus, will meet June 24-25. Limited to twelve.
• Our Dinner Cruise June 28, featuring readings and fine food, is open to the public. Early reservations are advised.
• A Natural History Excursion on June 29 with a noted local naturalist will be a pleasant informative foray into the Tongass National Forest surrounding Sitka. Also limited to twelve.
• The Sitka Summer Music Festival overlaps with the Symposium, allowing participants to attend their finale chamber music concert on June 26.