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Lingít and Dena’ina writer and playwright Vera Starbard recently clinched her fourth Emmy nomination for the PBS Kids show, “Molly of Denali.” She was nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Preschool Animated Series for an episode called “ Thanks-for-giving .”

The episode aired last November and follows Molly and her friends as they learn why some Alaska Native people don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.

Starbard, who is currently Alaska’s State Writer Laureate , said she’d been pitching the episode since early in the show’s creation.

“It was sort of a, ‘let me at it,’” she said. “You know, I want to tell a Thanksgiving episode from a Native perspective. I don’t personally celebrate Thanksgiving.”

In

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