01-04-2025
After Emmy win for 'Molly of Denali,' Alaska's X'unei Lance Twitchell reflects on representation, goals and community
Mar. 31—X'unei Lance Twitchell stood at a podium in Los Angeles in mid-March doing something he'd never imagined would be possible.
Speaking his native Tlingit language, Twitchell accepted an Emmy Award for an episode he wrote for the PBS Kids program "Molly of Denali."
The episode, titled "Not a Mascot," won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Preschool Animated Series.
But the opportunity and the recognition both seemed unattainable just a handful of years ago.
"For Alaskan people and for Alaska Native people, there weren't a whole lot of people that told me that I could do this," Twitchell said in an interview. "So if people have ambitions to do something like this, they should go for it and find training and take classes and surround themselves with people who will lift them up."
Twitchell is a professor of Alaska Native languages at the University of Alaska Southeast as well as a writer in a number of different mediums.
It was the fourth episode Twitchell has written for the show, which premiered in 2019. The groundbreaking children's show features an Alaska Native lead character named Molly Mabray and follows her adventures in the state.
Twitchell came to the show after its original creative producer, Princess Daazhraii Johnson, had reached out to him about doing some cultural and language consulting.
"The show always has a goal of including Alaska Native language," Twitchell said. "That's just such a wonderful operational principle and so I was happy to be involved. I love (Johnson's) work and the things that she does. And then as I learned more about the project, and I saw they really created this whole universe in a collaborative way."
Twitchell was invited to be part of a scriptwriting fellowship for Alaska Native writers organized by the show. Even though he was incredibly busy the year it launched, he said the fellowship organizers were incredibly flexible with him as he went through what he called "an intensive writing process."
"You get a lot of feedback," he said. "It's quite a bit of work to write an 11-minute episode that is targeted at young viewers and also has to be complex."
Twitchell had experience writing for the demographic as an author. He co-authored "Kuhaantí," a children's book written entirely in Tlingit.
Twitchell said while he'd always thought he'd write more adult-themed pieces, the show had a deep personal resonance. There are thousands of children's books and shows, but few that represent Alaska Native kids.
"There's very few things where we could really see ourselves in it and hear ourselves," he said. "So after you read about 300 books with a chicken and a pig and a cow, you start to think, well, what about our stories? And what about things that we know, and what about our people?
"So it was just such a wonderful and refreshing thing, because I could enjoy the episodes that I helped create with my kids."
While the show offers an important reflection of cultural identity for Alaska Native people, it's also appealing to audiences across the country. Twitchell said that can be a balancing act between honoring the diversity of Alaska Native cultures encompassing nearly two dozen languages, while making it "relatable to someone who's in Boston or someone who's in Texas."
"This opportunity was so special to have a lead character who's an Alaska Native child," he said. "It just felt like an impossibility, and when the idea (for the series) came out — of course, it's a wonderful idea. I just never knew it's gonna be possible. It's just so fabulous."
The episode that earned the award — written by Twitchell and story edited by Raye Lankford — involves the topic of Native American mascots.
It's an issue that has taken on increasing national relevance in recent years as pro sports teams in Cleveland and Washington have changed their nicknames to remove Native American mascots.
In the episode, the fictional Sitka War Chiefs change their name to the Sitka Sundogs.
Twitchell said he tried to write the episode to underscore the harm that the mascots can incur but also handle the topic with sensitivity. He talked to fellow "Molly of Denali" writer Vera Starbard — who is also the current Alaska State Writer Laureate — about an approach to the storyline.
"We talked about how could we do this without without hurting people or embarrassing people, but just to show, like, you can actually do that and still have a sense of pride and identity," he said.
In Los Angeles, Twitchell gave the first portion of the acceptance speech in Tlingit, and while he had prepared to speak if the show won at the March 15 ceremony, it was still a surprise and a thrill.
"I know the 'Molly' team had gone twice before, and you know to pick one (episode) you just never know," he said. "And so I just kept telling myself, like, it would be so wonderful for this to happen, for the whole show, for the whole team, but I have to be ready for it not to happen."
"I can't believe how much time it felt like until they made that announcement. I could hear my heart beating and feel my heart beating very loud."
(Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the winning episode was the second Twitchell has written for the show.)
