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New York City Must Include Writers in Its Support for the Arts

Photograph of Central Park Lake (NYC) courtesy of Nkon21 under CC BY-SA 4.0

“The City Council has already shown an incredible commitment to ensuring the broader artistic economy is supported during this disastrous time,” said PEN America’s COO Dru Menaker. “But we’re alarmed that writers have not been explicitly included in calls for support . . . “

A citywide coalition of literary arts organizations sent a letter to the New York City Council insisting that council members consider writers and literary arts organizations as a vital part of the city’s artistic infrastructure in its upcoming budget. The letter asks that the council ensure writers and the organizations that support them are included in any relief package designed to revive the arts community amid the coronavirus crisis.

“In times of national crisis, we have long turned to writers for inspiration, understanding, comfort, and enlightenment. Writers who call New York City home have helped this country and the world make sense of global depression, war, and the societal impact of racism, inequity, and hatred,” the letter reads. “Our city cannot afford to let this literary legacy lapse by ignoring the needs of our writers at this critical juncture.”

The letter – addressed to council members Van Bramer, Gjonaj, Moya, Cumbo, and Borelli of the Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations – says that the impacts of the coronavirus crisis on the arts has been clear, and the City Council has already called on the mayor to ensure federal relief funds are directed in part to artists or arts organizations. But those calls have omitted novelists, nonfiction authors, poets, essayists, playwrights, translators, and other writers. Writers have lost significant income, facing canceled speaking engagements, declines in book sales, loss of teaching, and publishers failing to pay royalties and advances, creating acute financial need.

“The City Council has already shown an incredible commitment to ensuring the broader artistic economy is supported during this disastrous time,” said PEN America’s COO Dru Menaker. “But we’re alarmed that writers have not been explicitly included in calls for support. PEN America, as a literary organization but also as a membership organization representing nearly 3,000 writers across the city, believes that the City Council can do the right thing here. Writers, now more than ever, are essential to the life of the city. And their livelihoods are imperiled by the loss of part time and gig work that often keeps writers financially afloat.”

The letter calls on the city council to include writers as part of the artistic community, as well as the organizations that showcase and support them. That means an explicit mention of writers and writers’ organizations in any legislative language relative to supporting the arts. The letter calls on the Council to provide tax credits to city-based businesses to support literary arts organizations, relief for commercial rents, and a project that would remunerate writers to document the impacts of the pandemic on New York City.

“We hope our representatives in the Council will address the financial and health needs of those who provide the City with its essential services, including our first responders and healthcare professionals, and that they continue to fund programs that provide the sick, homeless, disabled, the undocumented, and marginalized communities and youth with the care and attention they need,” the letter says. “But as you contemplate ensuring how best to use relief funds to shore up the arts, we call upon you to recognize the vital role the literary community writers and the literary organization that showcase and support their work will play in bearing witness to these troubled times.”

This post is courtesy of PEN America.

PEN America runs the Writers Emergency Fund, designed to support writers who are most directly impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Read more about that fund here.

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. It champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.

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NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS announced its second round of funding for 2017

NEA logo, public domain

On June 14, as the only funder in the country to support arts activities in all 50 states and five U.S. jurisdictions, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced its second round of funding for FY 2017. This funding round includes partnerships with state, jurisdictional, and regional arts agencies. The NEA will award 1,195 grants totaling $84.06 million to support organizations that employ artists and cultural workers to provide programs for thousands of people from Idaho to Maine; in urban centers such as Cleveland, Ohio and Dallas, Texas; and in rural towns as different as Haines, Alaska and Whitesburg, Kentucky.

“The American people are recognized for their innovative spirit and these grants represent the vision, energy, and talent of America’s artists and arts organizations,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “I am proud of the role the National Endowment for the Arts plays in helping advance the creative capacity of the United States.”

NEA-funded arts activities are as diverse as the places that foster them. A folk festival in downtown Butte, Montana; a former gas station transformed into a glass foundry in Farmville, North Carolina; dance classes for children with special needs in Winter Park, Florida; and a playwrights’ workshop in New Harmony, Indiana are just a few of the projects included in the lists below.

These lists are organized by:

State/Jurisdiction and then by City/Town and by Funding Category (Art Works II, Our Town, Research: Art Works, and state and regional partnerships) and then Artistic Discipline/Field, ranging from arts education to visual arts

Competition for NEA grants is significant. In this second funding round for FY 2017, the agency received 2,063 eligible applications. The value of NEA funding is not only its monetary impact but also its reputation. An NEA grant confers a seal of approval, allowing an organization to attract other public and private funds beyond the required 1:1 match. In 2016, the ratio of NEA dollars to matching funds was 1:9 or $500 million.

To join the Twitter conversation about this announcement, use #NEASpring17.

ART WORKS II: 1,029 awards totaling $26.1 million

Art Works is the NEA’s largest category and focuses on funding the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with art, lifelong learning in the arts, and strengthening of communities through the arts.

Examples of Art Works-supported projects are:

  • A $20,000 grant to Alabama Youth Ballet Theatre in Huntsville will provide free or reduced-cost clothing, equipment, nutrition, and professional instruction for underserved students during a summer dance program
  • A $20,000 grant to the Baltimore School for the Arts Foundation will support expansion of TWIGS (To Work In Gaining Skills), a free multidisciplinary arts education program for students from underserved communities
  • A $30,000 grant to the Montana Office of Public Instruction in Helena in partnership with the Montana Arts Council to help teachers and teaching artists integrate the arts into classroom instruction through the Montana Teacher Leaders in the Arts Institute.

OUR TOWN: 89 awards totaling $6.89 million

Our Town is the NEA’s signature creative placemaking program that supports partnerships of artists, arts organizations, and municipal government that work to revitalize neighborhoods. This practice places arts at the table with land-use, transportation, economic development, education, housing, infrastructure, and public safety strategies to address a community’s challenges. Creative placemaking highlights the distinctiveness of a place, encouraging residents to identify and build upon their local creative assets.

Examples of Our Town-supported projects are:

  • A $75,000 grant to the Arrow Rock Lyceum Theatre in Arrow Rock, Missouri to support community planning and design for the theater’s expansion. The Lyceum is the only professional theater between Kansas City and St. Louis.
  • A $100,000 grant to the National Association of Counties Research Foundation to allow the foundation to train county staff and managers on how to do arts-based economic development across rural America.

In addition to funding, the NEA advances creative placemaking through publications and resource development. In December 2016, the NEA released How to Do Creative Placemaking, a collection of essays and case studies. Other materials are available on the NEA’s newly re-launched creative placemaking page.

RESEARCH: ART WORKS: 14 awards totaling $540,000

This year marks the sixth year that the NEA has offered funding for research by outside parties through the Office of Research & Analysis. This year’s funded studies investigate research questions about the value and/or impact of the arts, or studies will explore causal links between the arts and another domain of interest.

For example; the Affordable Housing Management Company based in Fishers, Indiana will receive a $90,000 grant to support a study examining the effects of music engagement on low-income, older adults.

STATE AND REGIONAL PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS: 63 awards totaling $50.53 million

Through partnership agreements, the NEA translates national leadership into local and regional benefit. States and U.S. jurisdictions have their own arts agency that together receive 40 percent of the NEA’s grantmaking funds each year to support their programs and leverage state funding. In addition to these 55 agencies, six regional arts organizations are funded to manage programs across state, national, and international borders and across all arts disciplines.

In addition to the state and regional organizations, awards are made to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies to support national leadership services and to Pacific Resources in Education and Learning for delivering arts education services and technical assistance to arts agencies of the Pacific territories.

RELATED

  • Details on the threat by the current administration to NEA’s 2018 budget HERE.

About the National Endowment for the Arts

NEA logo, public domain

Established by Congress in 1965, the NEA is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. For more information, visit http://www.arts.gov.

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PLANS TO ABOLISH the U.S. National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities

Suzanne Nossel Executive Director, PEN America
Suzanne Nossel
Executive Director, PEN America

In response to news released on January 19 announcing that the Trump administration plans to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities, PEN America Executive Director Suzanne Nossel released the following statement:

The Trump administration’s plans, reported in The Hill this morning, to abolish wholesale the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts are an outrageous abdication of the U.S. government’s proud history of support for groundbreaking research and creative endeavors that have served as engines of innovation and bolstered America’s stature as a haven for free thinkers and a global leader in humanity’s shared quest for knowledge.

The National Endowment for the Humanities, founded in 1965, is a leading source of funding for humanities programs in the United States. Its grants support cultural institutions including museums, libraries, and public television, as well as universities and individual scholarship. It has supported over 7,000 book projects, including 16 Pulitzer Prize winners, and the United States Newspaper Project, cataloguing over 60 million pages of historic newspapers for future use by scholars.

The National Endowment for the Arts, also established in 1965, supports participation and scholarship in the arts, works to ensure equal access to arts and culture for all Americans, and partners with state and local leaders to support creative initiatives at the community level. Its funding supports literature, visual arts, dance, theater, museums, and arts education programs around the country

The announcement that this is even under consideration casts a sinister cloud over our vibrant national culture, stoking fears that the Trump Administration aims to usher in a new Dark Ages in America. U.S. leadership and innovation in arts, culture, and the humanities are wellsprings of American greatness and the envy of the world. This proposal sends shivers down the spine of all Americans who value research, scholarship, and creativity and who recognize the mortal blow that eliminating these vital agencies would strike at the heart of treasured sectors of our society. Even apart from the essential resources at stake, the signal sent by this gesture is a slap in the face to artists, writers, researchers, and scholars who are learning that the Administration seems to consider their work worthless.

-Suzanne Nossel
Executive Director, PEN America
January 19, 2017

Photo credit PEN America under CC BY SA 4.0 license

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.