Vera Starbard named new Alaska writer laureate

Playwright and decorated TV writer Vera Starbard has been named Alaska’s State Writer Laureate.

On Thursday, the Alaska State Council on the Arts and Alaska Humanities Forum announced the appointment, which runs for two years. Starbard was preceded in the position by Haines author Heather Lende.

Starbard, who is Tlingit/Dena’ina Athabascan, has a resume that includes work as a playwright and magazine editor. She has earned multiple Emmy nominations for her work as a TV writer.

“My brief lifetime of storytelling hasn’t been enough to properly showcase the real beauty of our state, the warmth and the pain of it, the wisdom and richness inherent in our land and its people,” Starbard said in a statement. “So how exciting to think I’ll have the privilege of spending the next two years working to promote more stories from Alaska, and encourage more Alaskan storytellers.”

The laureate program recognizes “the selected writer’s contribution to the quality of life in Alaska through their written work and other literary endeavors,” according to the Alaska Humanities Forum website.

By the time she graduated from Anchorage’s East High in 2000, Starbard had already developed a passion for storytelling. She was the editor of the school newspaper. She continued the work professionally, editing a number of publications, including a decade as editor-in-chief of First Alaskans Magazine.

Her credits as a playwright include “Our Voices Will Be Heard,” which was produced at Perseverance Theatre in 2016. It was published in the textbook “Contemporary Plays by Women of Color” a year later. Starbard’s first commissioned play, “Devilfish,” premiered at Perseverance Theatre in Juneau and Anchorage in 2019.

Starbard has written for a number of TV shows, including ABC’s “Alaska Daily” and the animated PBS Kids series “Molly of Denali,” which won a Peabody Award in 2020 and was nominated for two Children and Family Emmys in 2022, followed by three nominations in 2023.