Back then, I didn't have time for Poets & Writers. Fine, I was part of a panel discussion it sponsored, went to get-togethers: awfully smart people, high-minded yet down to earth. But I was serving on the boards of PEN and Mystery Writers of America. Enough. I'd learned that while being a "living American novelist" was exhilirating, being out there depleted my energy for fantasy and work, the two activities that made me a writer in the first place. So sorry, P&W.
However, that was in the late eighties, a dark and stormy night as far as the arts were concerned. A few controversial exhibitions—among them Mapplethorpe's homoerotic work and Andres Serrano's "Piss-Christ" photo—triggered yet another crusade against federal subsidies to the arts. Never one to miss a chance to diminish the soul of the nation, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina introduced an amendment to keep government funds from being used to "promote, disseminate, or produce obscene or indecent materials...or material which denigrates the objects or beliefs of the adherents of a particular religion or nonreligion." As a novelist (and former political speechwriter) and a citizen, I was concerned. Okay, worried sick.
So were other writers, artists, musicians, and culture lovers. Freedom of expression was under attack, as was the National Endowment for the Arts—specifically its grants to individual artists, like the NEA's literature program. Poets, playwrights, and fiction writers made speeches, held rallies, wrote op-eds, all with one goal: save the NEA! So many meetings. Big talk, little action.
That was when I gave my heart to P&W. While others debated the most effective means of protesting, Poets & Writers was effective. Its executive director, Elliot Figman, organized a bipartisan band of writers. He and his colleagues instructed us on the legislation and the most engaging way of presenting our views to unsympathetic representatives. They set up appointments with these members of Congress and let us loose.
When the vote was finally taken, the literature program was the only one of the individual grant projects to survive. Poets & Writers deserved more than my thanks; it deserved my efforts. Since then, I've marveled at how P&W belies the stereotype of woolly-headed culture lovers. In its work on behalf of the literary community as well as the individual poet or writer, it is adroit, well-organized, and astoundingly successful. We who work alone need to exchange information and ideas. We need counsel and encouragement. We also need a friend who watches out for our welfare. We, I, need Poets & Writers.
—Susan Isaacs, novelist and chairman of P&W's Board of Directors