2025 Project Award

Kaelan Denali Dickinson will finish writing ‘Redoubt’, a feature-length screenplay set in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, days before the 1987 eruption of Mt. Redoubt. The story centers on an Anchorage Times journalist who returns home and discovers the town’s benevolent matriarch is running a drug ring, drawing parallels with the impacts of the industrial oil boom in Alaska. Dickinson will apply to screenwriting programs, speak publicly, and submit her work for peer feedback.

When asked what she would like the public to know, Dickinson responded, “I’m excited by climate writing and storytelling that isn’t exclusively post-apocalyptic doom and gloom. I think space exists for climate stories that are hopeful for our future while recognizing our past and I see no better place to strike that balance than Alaska. I write to engage, not preach; to explore losing sight of original intentions, the moral ambiguity in finding them again, and the fierceness with which Alaskan women will protect their homes.”