“We Need You”: Resilience and Despair in the Wake of the NEA Cuts

Covers courtesy of Center For The Art of Translation, African Voices, Nightboat Books, and BOA Editions

You’ve probably heard that a reliable pot of money for nonprofit presses and magazines is gone, definitely for now, probably for years, and possibly for the long haul. Late on May 2, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which has funded literary endeavors since the 1960s, began emailing all 51 literary arts organizations who had been awarded grants for use in 2025 — as well as hundreds of other arts organizations — to notify them that their awards had been “terminated” or “withdrawn.” The immediate losses to literary grantees are estimated at $350,000, according to Mary Gannon, executive director of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), which counts 46 of the affected organizations among its membership. 

In the weeks since, those organizations, 12 of which I spoke to for this story, have scrambled to fundraise, waited to hear about the results of appeals, and leaned on one another, as well as CLMP, for support. But the ask to readers and donors remains consistent: Support nonprofit publishing in whatever way you’re able, today and tomorrow. 

“Not to be too crass about it, but we need money,” said Peter Conners, executive director and publisher of BOA Editions, which has been winning NEA grants for decades. BOA, which will publish 12 books this year, is presently trying to fill the $35,000 hole that’s opened in its budget as a result of the cuts. “It’s rocked us,” he added, noting that he hopes the news cycle around the cuts has educated people about how nonprofit publishing operates. The scale of the disaster isn’t helping their fundraising efforts. “Everybody’s reaching out to a similar pool, saying, ‘Hey, we’re in trouble, we could really use some help.’ Having everybody go through it at the same time just compounds the issue.”