Arts and Culture are Under Attack
News Stories for Suburban Women
The National Endowment for the Arts Begins Terminating Grants - The New York Times
The RWB Take: The National Endowment for the Arts, which funds arts and theater, announced via email on Friday evening that they would be cutting previously promised funding from organizations all across the country. Although they claim to be focusing on funding projects that “reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the president,” many of the programs that had funding pulled were focused in diverse stories and characters. So as usual, what they call our “rich heritage” actually means the exact opposite.
The administration has also canceled grants at the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. At this point, we aren’t surprised by any of these cuts to art and culture funding — it’s just one more way that the Trump administration is trying to control America’s diverse culture. If you can, reach out to artistic organizations in your community. Your help or even just your words of support will go a long way to assure them that America still values the arts.
The Massachusetts Review let us know their grant for a special issue featuring incarcerated writers and families was terminated. $15,000 had been committed. I don’t know if they will be suing for illegal impoundment but for now the press is planning to go ahead with the issue. I had submitted dozens for poems from incarcerated poets in the Prisoner Express program. We had been expecting to hear selection decisions this summer.