funding for the arts

For many writers groups and nonprofit literary organizations battered by the recession, help is on the way. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was signed into law by president Barack Obama in February, included fifty million dollars in arts funding that is being allocated by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Melissa Levin of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council discusses how the nonprofit organization, which was displaced both by the September 11 attacks and more recently Hurricane Sandy, continues to provide office and studio space to writers and artists in lower Manhattan. 

This spring the San Francisco-based nonprofit Sustainable Arts Foundation launches its residency grant program, which offers support to writers and artists residencies that accomodate writers and artists with children. 

The Newtowner, an arts and literary quarterly based in Newtown, Connecticut, published a tribute issue in an effort to help its hometown heal after the shooting at Sand Hook Elementary School.

Poet Susan Howe wins lifetime achievement award; what funding cuts to the NEA and NEH means for writers; Latinx writers on the lack of Latinx faculty at retreats; and other news.