Molly McCammon
President | Anchorage
Molly McCammon is the Founder, past Executive Director and now Senior Advisor of the Alaska Ocean Observing System, a non-profit established in 2003 to facilitate ocean observing activities and data products to meet the needs of marine stakeholders. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council for a decade. She holds a BA in Journalism from the University of California Berkeley and worked in journalism for many years. Her many volunteer commitments include ten years as a board member and past chair of the Great Land Trust. In 2020, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Alaska Anchorage in recognition of her many contributions to our state. Molly serves on the 49 Writers board because of her love of literature and the written word and her interest in “helping organizations think and plan strategically and facilitate networking opportunities to achieve goals.”
dawnell smith
Vice President | Anchorage
dawnell smith finds a sense of belonging in mountains, big water, and the stories people share through words and art. She does communications work for Trustees for Alaska, a nonprofit environmental law firm, and has made a living and life in varied roles, including as a journalist and arts administrator. dawnell makes essays, poems, and stories as time allows. Her words have appeared in various publications, including the Anchorage Daily News, F Magazine, Forum magazine, Cirque, and "Building Fires in the Snow.” She received a master’s in creative writing and literary arts from the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and co-founded and helped open the Writer's Block Bookstore and Cafe, where she most recently focused on overseeing events and promotions. She lives on Dena'ina lands in Anchorage, Alaska, with a family of human and more-than-human animals to whom she is endlessly grateful for schooling her on the ways of relationships and motion.
Heather Aruffo
Program Chair | Fairbanks
Heather Aruffo is a 2019 graduate of the MFA program at UAF, where she studied with Frank Soos, and is currently based in Fairbanks. She has lived in Alaska since 2016 and considers it her adopted home. By day, she works remotely as a regulatory medical writer for Seagen, a cancer focused biotechnology company based in Seattle, and by night, she is an omniverous writer of prose. She was a 2019-2020 Fulbright Scholar to Mongolia, is an alumnus of the Tin House and Breadloaf Writers Worskops, and has received support from Storyknife and the Rona Jaffee Foundation. When she isn’t working on her essay collection, she can be found training for ultramarathons, hiking, wrangling her three dogs, Oaken, Olaf and Zoya, or exploring the interior with her fiancé Garrett.
Sarah Reynolds Westin
Board Member | Anchorage
Sarah tells true stories artfully, which catch people's attention and have resulted in her being featured internationally by The New York Times, BBC Radio 4, and Reader's Digest and by more local outlets, including Alaska Magazine (forthcoming), Cirque, Edible Alaska, FORUM, Alaska Business, and Alaska Women Speak. She studied under David Stevenson while earning her MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Arts from the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). Sarah has also earned an MA in English from UAA and a BA in Ancient Languages from OBU and has completed three years of graduate coursework in programs at Wake Forest University and within the College of Business and Psychology Departments at UAA. In total, Sarah's secured 34 publications, presented live storytelling 22 times, received nine professional artist awards (including from ADN/UAA Creative Writing Contest, Jason Wenger Award for Excellence, Alaska Writers Guild, and NYC Midnight), been appointed for two art residencies (with Alaska State Parks and Alaska's State Council on the Arts), and overseen two community art projects. She currently works at United Way of Anchorage as its Written Word Storyteller, has worked in communications for 15 years, and has taught as an adjunct professor in the English Department at UAA for four years. Sarah proudly shares that her first real adult decision was to move to Alaska, where she's remained for almost 20 years. When she's not writing or storytelling, you can find Sarah playing with her favorite person -- her 10-year-old child -- and their slew of pets, including a sled-dog rescue, two crazy cats, two feisty gerbils, and two frogs who just want to be left alone please.
Summer Christiansen
Board Member | Juneau
Summer A.H. Christiansen (she/they) is a queer writer, mother, educator, and lifelong Alaskan residing on the unceded land of T'aaḵu Kwáan and A'akw Kwáan. Her work has been published in Silver Rose Magazine, Tidal Echoes, Alaska Women Speak, and Drizzle Review. She is a recent graduate from the Rainier Writing Workshop and holds an MFA in Creative Writing: Non-Fiction.
Jane Jacob
Board Member | Fairbanks
Jane Jacob is a 2023 graduate from the MFA program at UAF with a concentration in screenwriting, although she also writes creative nonfiction and short stories. She is based out of Fairbanks where she teaches introductory writing courses at the university and enjoys life with her partner, dog, and two cats. She loves all creative endeavours and has taken up woodworking and metalsmithing as well as a myriad of fiber arts. She is most excited about engaging with the writing community in Fairbanks and creating more events for everyone to get together and share their love of reading and writing. On the weekends and evenings, while healing from an injury keeping her from running, she can be found playing hockey, curling, and rock climbing.
Geoff Kirsch
Board Member | Juneau
Geoff Kirsch is a writer and writing teacher based in Juneau, Alaska, with a BS in communications from Cornell University and MFA in fiction from New School University. His publications range from literary short fiction to newspaper/magazine feature. He also writes humor, most notably the book "Run for Your Life! Doomsday 2012!" (Workman NYC) and the column "Slack Tide," which has been running in the Juneau Empire since 2009 (with a short hiatus here and there). Additionally, he has written various stage, screen, and tele- plays for national, state and local production. Lately, he works as a writing instructor at University of Alaska Southeast, teaching composition and creative writing courses, although he has also taught writing at every level from elementary school to community adult ed.
Fidelis Feeley
Board Member | Fairbanks
Fidelis Feeley lives in Fairbanks and is a graduate of the MFA program at UAF. She wrote a series of ten stories inspired by the Bill of Rights for Ghost Parachute and has published in Best Micro-Fictions, SmokeLong, Jellyfish Review, Pulp Literature, and others. Her one-minute memoir was featured on Brevity Blog. Feeley was a Fellow at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and twice received scholarships to the Wesleyan Writers Conference. She has been nominated for Best Small Fictions, The Pushcart Prize, was an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Quarterfinalist, and has judged for Scholastic.
Carol Swartz
Board Member | Homer
Carol Swartz became the Director of UAA’s Kachemak Bay Campus-KPC in 1986 and recently retired from this role as Campus Director Emerita. One of the programs she developed is the nationally-recognized and community-building Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference. Honors she has received include the Governor’s Award for Service to the Humanities and Arts, Alaska Adult Center for the Book’s Contributions in Literacy, Homer Woman of Distinction, UAA Meritorious Service, YWCA Alaska Women of Achievement and Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame. She lives in Homer.
Mikayla Miller
Board Member | Bethel
Mikayla Miller (she/her) works as the Youth Services Coordinator at the Kuskokwim Consortium Library in Bethel. She has a BA in Literature from the University of Sioux Falls and a MS-ILS in Library Science from SUNY Buffalo. She is deeply passionate about storytelling, theatre, and providing equity for both in rural Alaska.
Lauren Cusimano
Board Member | Anchorage
Lauren Cusimano spent 14 years in journalism before moving to Alaska to pursue a career in conservation—work that has directly inspired her writing. Lauren writes speculative fiction and horror short stories as well as nonfiction articles. Her writing can be seen in Juneau Empire and Phoenix New Times, among other publications. She is also a part-time professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. By day, Lauren is the Communications Manager for Audubon Alaska. She lives in Dghevey Kag'/Anchorage and enjoys cycling, birding, all things horror, doing Alaska stuff with her partner Nate, and singing to her pets, Fred Meyer and Leroy.
Garrett Smithberg
Board Member | Juneau
Garrett Smithberg was raised on an island near the Salish Sea. For the last two decades, he has lived in Juneau, Alaska—on the unceded lands of the Áak'w Ḵwáan in Lingít Aaní—Southeast Alaska. A lay practitioner of Zen Buddhism since his early twenties, he is a writer whose practice is underpinned by an acute focus on interconnection, the ebb of ecological rhythms as they intersect within the present, and attention devoted to where they inextricably meet.
At various points he has made his living as a rough-and-tumble laborer, groundskeeper, professional landscaper, assistant librarian, bookseller, museum gift store clerk, and as a general handyman. His poems—which attempt to express the nature of this work—have appeared in numerous editions of the University of Alaska Southeast literary journal, Tidal Echoes, the Madrona Project Anthologies from Empty Bowl Press, as well as upon countless cards, notes, and scraps of paper gifted to family and loved ones. A forthcoming anthology, published by friend & visual artist, Galen Garwood, will include several of his poems.
At present, he is pursuing a B.A. in English, with a Minor in Indigenous Studies, along with a Certificate in Lingít Yoo X̱ʼatángi (Tlingít Language) from the University of Alaska Southeast. His fiancée, Neilg̱áa Koogéi Taija Revels, is the Executive Director of Goldbelt
Barbara Hood
Past President Ex Officio | Anchorage
Barbara Hood moved to Fairbanks with her family at age ten, and has called Alaska home ever since. She received a BS in Biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she was drawn to writing as a staff reporter for the Polar Star student newspaper. Her interest continued in law school at the University of California Berkeley, where she served on the editorial board of Ecology Law Quarterly, one of the country’s oldest environmental law journals. During her legal career, Barbara worked in the public sector for Alaska Legal Services Corporation, the Alaska Attorney General’s Office, and the Alaska Court System. In addition, she helped her husband found and manage Great Harvest Bread Co. in Anchorage for over 23 years. Now fully retired, she volunteers for justice and writing organizations and pursues her longtime interests in creative writing, photography, and human rights advocacy. Her essays, poetry, fiction and commentary have appeared in the Anchorage Press, Anchorage Daily News, and CIRQUE.
Katie Bausler
Podcast Producer | Ex-Officio Member | Juneau
Katie Bausler is a former award-winning broadcast journalist, PR Director for the University of Alaska Southeast and current Community Relations Director for Bartlett Regional Hospital. She holds an MA in English from Middlebury College and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She writes occasional columns for the Sunday We Alaskans section in the Alaska Dispatch newspaper and has had several pieces published in the University of Alaska Southeast literary journal, Tidal Echoes. Katie and her husband Karl are devoted residents of the island kingdom of Douglas, across the channel from Juneau, Alaska’s capital.
Kristen Ritter
Interim Executive Director | Anchorage
Kristen Ritter is a writer and playwright. She is a Fulbright Fellow and Alaska Literary Award recipient. Her writing has been supported by the Alaska State Council on the Arts, the Kennedy Center, the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, the Alaska Arts & Culture Foundation, and Theater Alaska. She supports 49 Writers because she wants to provide resources and opportunities to artists across the state!
Alison Miller
Tutka Bay Retreat Coordinator | Palmer
Alison Miller has an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and writes both fiction and nonfiction. Although she was born and raised in Texas, she has been chasing her dreams north for the better part of her adult life. She's passionate about literary communities and the creative process, and she hopes to empower others on their writing journey. When not working or writing, she's likely volunteering, cooking vegetarian comfort foods, running, or exploring Alaska. She lives in Palmer, Alaska, with her partner and is currently working on her first novel.
Past Board and Staff Members
Alison Miller*
Mistee St. Clair
Caroline Van Hemert
Sara Guinn
Mary Katzke
Ben Kuntz
Cameron Leonard
Ron Andersen
Carla Beam
Karen Benning
Linda Caird (formerly Ketchum)*
Kirsten Dixon
Morgan Grey*
Erin Coughlin Hollowell*
Gabriel Olmos
Amy O’Neill Houck
Eric Larson
Matt Komatsu
Jeremy Pataky*
Joan Pardes
Shauna Potocky
Don Rearden
Carol Richards
Andromeda Romano-Lax*
Deb Vanasse*
Katrina Woolford
*Former Executive Director