Industry & Advocacy News
May 6, 2025
On May 2, 2025, the National Endowment for the Arts began a mass termination of grants to arts organizations across the country, just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency entirely in his next budget. These notifications were sent from an NEA address that did not accept replies, stating that “The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the president.”
The grant terminations were not unexpected, following National Endowment for the Humanities and Institute of Museum and Library Services grant terminations and the president’s proposed budget, which would eliminate all three organizations. In February, the administration first suspended the Challenge America grant program that supported underserved communities, then attempted to require applicants to promise not to promote certain concepts, and is now proposing to eliminate the agency altogether.
The NEA’s stated new priorities raise serious questions about the administration’s understanding of the role of the arts in society. According to the termination emails, future funding will prioritize projects that “celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster A.I. competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.”
While some of these goals may have merit as general policy objectives, many represent a fundamental shift away from supporting artistic excellence and creative expression and instead move toward using arts funding as a vehicle for political messaging.
In a letter to subscribers, Electric Lit addressed this shift directly: “Creative expression is the lifeblood that vivifies a free and democratic culture. Trump is obsessed with a heritage and legacy of his own imagination. For him, literature is forward-facing and therefore dangerous. Every story, even about the past, is a new story. Every story a writer tells is one Trump cannot control.”
The NEA grant termination tracker paints a bleak picture of the situation. The American literary landscape faces an unprecedented threat, with most publishers and other literary organizations having their funding withdrawn or terminated. Respected literary publications and presses that have shaped American culture for decades are now scrambling to survive. Authors, who already struggle with paltry incomes—the median annual income for full-time authors hovers around just $20,000, far below a living wage in most parts of the country—now face an ecosystem with even fewer resources to support their work.
The Paris Review lost $15,000 in funding. McSweeney’s saw $25,000 withdrawn. One Story had $20,000 terminated—funds the literary magazine had already received and begun using for its publications. ZYZZYVA and n+1 both lost $12,500. These organizations not only publish emerging and established authors but also serve as vital incubators for new writers.
For many of these organizations, NEA funding represents a crucial portion of their operating budgets. Transit Books lost $40,000, Milkweed Editions lost $50,000, and Arte Publico Press lost $40,000. These presses, particularly those focused on works in translation, diverse voices, and experimental writing, operate on tight margins where NEA support often makes the difference between publishing a book or not.
Chicago Underground Film Festival was advised by the Film Festival Alliance to request its funds early and managed to receive its full $20,000 just days before its grant was terminated. Others weren’t so fortunate. Great Plains Theatre Commons reported that “after we submitted the award acceptance paperwork, the award disappeared from ‘offers’ and never showed up in ‘active awards.’ We made repeated inquiries and were told it was a delay in processing. The funds were never made available to us.”
While the termination emails claimed the NEA would prioritize projects supporting historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions, as well as celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence, promoting AI literacy, empowering religious institutions, aiding disaster recovery, fostering skilled trades, supporting health initiatives, backing military and veterans, uplifting Tribal communities, enhancing safety and beauty in the District of Columbia, and assisting the economic growth of Asian American communities, et cetera, the actual pattern of cuts suggests otherwise. Many of the withdrawn grants specifically supported work by artists of color and publications focused on diverse voices.
Literary organizations publishing translated works and multicultural perspectives were disproportionately affected. The Center for the Art of Translation lost $45,000, Words Without Borders lost $15,000, and Arte Publico Press, the nation’s largest publisher of contemporary and recovered Hispanic literature, saw $40,000 in funding terminated.
Print Center New York lost $50,000 for its exhibition Printing Black America, while Jiva Performing Arts lost $15,000 for “the development of a new ensemble work based in classical Indian dance.” This contradiction between stated priorities and actual cuts has raised serious concerns throughout the arts community.
In a poignant development that underscores the severity of the crisis, NEA Literary Arts Director Amy Stolls and three other members of the NEA Literary Arts staff, who collectively dedicated 57 years to supporting American literature, announced that they plan to leave the agency on May 30.
Their farewell letter, sent from their personal email addresses, eloquently outlined the NEA’s profound impact on American literary culture over nearly 60 years: awarding fellowships to nearly 600 translators from more than 80 languages, supporting more than 3,800 poets and writers “often at critical stages of their careers,” and creating initiatives such as the NEA Big Read that “has reached every Congressional district in the country.”
The departing staff paid tribute to writers whose works allow readers “to enter the depths of love, fear, sadness, anger, and connection.” They thanked “the poets, the story writers, the novelists, the essayists, the memoirists for your words that have lifted us toward the light,” calling writing a “superpower” that can “guide our way toward a hopeful future.”
The communities served by these organizations are similarly impacted. Programs promoting literacy in underserved areas, supporting emerging writers from marginalized communities, and making literature accessible to new audiences are all at risk.
Earth Celebrations, which lost $10,000, reported that it had “allocated funds based on the award with a timeline for the core production January through May 10, 2025. Artists’ honorariums for a series of workshops engaging the community, workshop space rental, and other core costs have been expended to date, as per our accepted grant award offer and budget submitted. The Termination letter arrived one week before the end of the public production event on May 10, 2025.”
Maine Crafts Association, which lost $23,000, noted: “Offer letter accepted last November + award announced in January. Funds were never made available. … No response from NEA staff to our messages, emails, and voicemails. The program these funds support started in March 2025.”
The crisis extends beyond publishing. Theater organizations were hit particularly hard. Portland Playhouse received a termination notice just 24 hours before opening August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, losing the $25,000 grant that would have covered one-fifth of production costs. Yale Repertory Theater lost funding for a stage adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s work.
Trisha Brown Dance Company lost $40,000 in “direct program funding for a show premiering this June.” Dances for a Variable Population lost the same amount for “free, community-based dance programs for low-income, minority, and culturally underserved older adults.”
As the arts community grapples with this sudden funding crisis, the question remains: will Congress again step in to save the NEA, as it did during Trump’s first term, or will this vital supporter of American literary life be silenced?
The departing NEA literary staff reminded us why this matters: Literature gives us “that unique joy in wondering about what we don’t know.” In these uncertain times, that connection, understanding, and hope are precisely what we stand to lose.
Statements
Trump Administration’s Interference in Artistic and Literary Expression Is Anti-American and Anti-Democratic
May 9, 2025
Authors Guild Condemns Attacks on the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment of the Humanities
April 2, 2025
Congratulations to the Winners of the 2024 National Book Awards!
November 22, 2024
