Frank Basile's Emerging Stories Fellowship

2000 Recipients

Cynthia Changaris researched and collected stories that have had a healing impact in adult community health settings.

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Lou Ann Homan created a collection of Indiana stories, “All Roads Lead Home.”

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2001 Recipients

Susan Grizzell used the stories and recipes handed down through the generations of women in her family to create, “I Ain’t Cookin’ for Nobody Today.”

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Bob Sander used both personal and traditional stories to celebrate the fact that his children are the fifth generation to have lived in Indianapolis in “Fathers and Sons.“

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2002 Recipients

Stephanie Holman created a collection of stories from her childhood living on an organic farm in the 1970s in Bloomington, Indiana.

George Schricker explored the mystical world of small-town Indiana in the 1950s, 60s and beyond in an original performance of stories, poems and songs titled “The Space.”

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2003 Recipients

Vanita Moore created a coming-of-age story of a young West Virginian girl who becomes one of only 500 flight nurses during World War II. “From Surgery Suites to War-Torn Skies” shared the humorous mishaps and compassion of this young woman, who finds joy amid the horrors of war.

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Liza Hyatt took us back to 1867, when a young John Muir came to Indianapolis to work at a carriage factory. “Through John’s Eyes” offered deep insights into the recovery of John’s vision — both physical and spiritual — a vision that led him to found the Sierra Club.

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2004 Recipients

Sharon Kirk Clifton told the story of “Abigail Gray: Living Under the Drinking Gourd,” a first-person account of a fictional farm wife whose home was a sanctuary to runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.

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Khabir Shareef developed “Sweetcakes: A Bittersweet Story of an African-American Family,” the story of his grandfather, the eldest in an Alabama family who was the first to go north. 

 

2005 Recipients
Sandra Harris told “Too Crazy to Know Better,” a personal history of her participation in the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama during the 1960s.

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Dan LeMonnier shared the life and writings of Clarence Jordan, author of “The Cotton Patch Gospels.” Jordan’s concern for social and economic justice of the poor and disenfranchised people led him to found Koinoia Farms in Americus, Georgia. Sadly, LeMonnier passed away in 2012.

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2006 Recipients

Hope Baugh told her personal story, “Hoosier in Tokyo: A Tale of Leaving Home and Finding it Again.” The story focused on Baugh’s experiences living in Japan, weaving original stories with traditional Japanese folktales. Sadly, Baugh passed away in 2017.

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Bob and Kathie Myers, also known as “The Story Peddlers,” told “Army Life for Father,” a tale that centered on letters written by Jim Leddy, a 34-year-old Army private, to his wife from 1943 to 1944.

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2007 Recipients

We hosted a Frank Basile Emerging Stories Festival in which past recipients retold their stories.

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2008 Recipients

Cynthia Goodyear told her autobiographical story, “Life as a Folktale,” which included a series of vignettes from different stages in her life: a child in Boston, a teenager during the war, a young army wife in New York and a mother and grandmother in Indianapolis.

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Deborah Asante interviewed a diverse cross-section of women about love and used these interviews as seeds to create “Enough Love: Love Stories for Adults Only.”

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2009 Recipients

Josefa Crowe shared her story of “Growing Up Under the Swastika” during Hitler’s dictatorship in Germany. It is the story of her attempt to reconcile the values she learned at home — the quiet, gentle, passive resistance with those of the brutal, hateful Nazi ideology she learned at school.

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Sally Perkins traced the lives of two miniature poodles and their ignorant owners through hilarious events from puppyhood to adulthood.

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2010 Recipients

Jennie Kiffmeyer told a series of interconnected stories set on the banks of the Ohio River titled “The Rivertown Dispatch.”

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Celestine Bloomfield shared a few of the lesser-known short stories and folklore of Zora Neal Hurston. 

 

2011 Recipients​

John Robertson told a series of stories, “I Grew Up in the U.S. Navy.”

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Sondra Hayes told the story of 103 years of the life of her mother Eva Mae Danforth James in “With This Brush.” 

2012 Recipient

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Lou Ann Homan told the story, “Gathering Coal for the Lord,” about her father’s childhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

 

2013 Recipient

In 2013, we hosted the Frank Basile Emerging Stories Festival at the IndyFringe Basile Theatre, where past recipients retold their stories. Participants included Lou Ann Homan, John Robertson, Sondra Hayes, Jennie Kiffmeyer, Sally Perkins, Hope Baugh, Bob and Kathie Myers, Sandra Harris, Sharon Kirk Clifton, and George Schricker. 

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2014 Recipient

Frances Whitener shared her personal journey of uncertainty, concern and the hope for wellness as she underwent four brain surgeries between 1974 and 1984.

 

2015 Recipient

Like so many Jewish immigrants, Bob Zalkin‘s family arrived in America unable to speak English, with scant money and no Western education. They had little more than the clothes on their backs and a desire to build a new life in this “golden land.” Even though the reality of that life in the U.S. was not so golden, these immigrants maintained a quality of joy and optimism. Zalkin shared songs and stories of hardship and joy drawn from his family’s own history and those of the two million other immigrants that resonate through the years and keep the hope of the American Dream alive.

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2016 Recipient

Bob Sander received his second Frank Basile Emerging Stories Fellowship to create his version of “The Three Perfect Peaches.” This modern take on the traditional French folktale combined on-stage performance with pre-recorded video excerpts of interviews with characters from the story of a king’s search for the cure to his daughter’s illness.

 

2017 Recipient

Liza Hyatt received her second Frank Basile Emerging Stories Fellowship to create, “A Braided Story for My Irish Great-Great Grandmothers.” Hyatt drew from family history records and traces their journey from 19th century Ireland to pioneer life on the Wabash, Erie and the Whitewater Canal. To further honor her heritage, Hyatt’s performance included Celtic harp accompaniment in the tradition of Irish bards.

 

2018 Recipient
In “Stories of Our Stones,” David Matlack shared a childhood fascination with Indiana fossils and limestone through a series of stories about the people who shared his passion while growing up in Richmond, Indiana.

 

2019 Recipient
In “Gin Girl,” Kim McCann told a story from her childhood days spent in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with various family members, but mostly her Great Aunt Juddie.

 

2020 Recipient
In “The Sunny Side of Virginia Street: Kitchen-table stories & musical memories,” Christina Jones weaved existing family stories with historical facts or competing recollections with the music of Hoosier legend Hoagy Carmichael, played by her mother, Tina Schutte. who is a professional musician in Evansville, Indiana.

 

2021 Recipient
Mary Jo Huff took you on the adventures of a football momma in her story, “50-Yard-Line Momma in Row 20.”

 

2022 Recipient
Portia Sholar Jackson told “A Celebration of Family, Unity, Faith, and Love,” the story of seven generations of her African-American family living family in Indianapolis.

 

2023 Recipient
Manón Voice told “Forerunner of Freedom: Indianapolis Bethel AME History told through Story, Song and Dance.” 

 

2024 Recipient

Jennifer Klee told “My Life in Parables,” original stories of personal growth, exploring themes of marriage, motherhood, family, and
community.

 

2025 Recipient

Brenda Johnson told “Aging. Reimagined!” a storytelling journey that redefined what it means to grow older—with resilience, joy, and hope.