Censorship News

 The following news came as an email from American Short Fiction:

On Friday night, a little after 9 p.m., just as we were basking in the warm company of our Austin literary community at The Stars at Night, an email landed quietly in our inboxes. So it was all the more jarring and surreal, after the fond goodbyes and the mad venue cleaning and all the exhilarating and exhausting packing up that follows a big successful event, to come home and open up an message from the National Endowment for the Arts with the subject line "Notice of Termination," telling us that the $20,000 grant awarded to us was being revoked.

The ostensible reason given was that our project, to support the publication and promotion of the magazine, no longer "align[ed] with [the President's] priorities." That $20k grant, which we'd come to rely on year after year, along with another grant from Humanities Texas eliminated earlier this spring as part of the cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, is an essential portion of our budget. All around us, other wonderful literary organizations received similar notices about the cancellation in funding—the arts are in peril.

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We need to make up the shortfall somewhere. Your support, whether by donating or spreading the word or subscribing, will help bridge the gap and make an enormous difference. You're getting this email because you've been there again and again in the past—thank you. If you're able to help now, you can donate via our website here, or send a check to: American Short Fiction, PO Box 4152, Austin, TX 78765

 The following news came as an email from The Common: 

You have likely heard that NEA grants to literary arts organizations have been “terminated.” The Common’s award of $12,500 to pay authors, editors, and translators is among the casualties.

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What is the best way, then, to support writers when their payments have been canceled by the federal government? 

Subscribe. Subscribe today. If you’re already a subscriber (thank you!), gift a subscription to a friend. 

I know there are few readers of this blog, but please think of making a contribution to either of these journals (or even both). 

 From The Los Angeles Review of Books, a review: How Librarians Found Themselves on the Front Line of the Culture War.

Jones is a middle school librarian in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. Her recent book, That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America (2024), documents her experience being thrust into the very online controversy of book challenges in public libraries. Her voice is engaging and the story she tells is by turns dismaying, enraging, and, for the cynics among us, not all that surprising. As a 44-year resident of her hometown, Jones is shocked to find herself suddenly portrayed online as a cartoonish villain. Living (literally) next-door to her childhood home, she faces allegations of purveying sexualizing, age-inappropriate material to minors, even by parents of children she had taught and community members she had known for decades.

Jones’s introduction to the unfair and loony world of being attacked by online trolls came following her participation in a community library board meeting. In the summer of 2022, she drove to her local branch library to read, alongside nearly 30 others, some preprepared thoughts about how book censorship would degrade the public collection and do a disservice to young people and adults who deserved to find a variety of lived experiences represented in the books of their hometown libraries. In her parish, a campaign had already begun in favor of censoring an unpublicized list of “problem titles.” Those leading the charge gestured performatively to the display of Dr. Seuss picture books, as if to suggest: your child might be doing some perfectly innocent browsing and then stumble on—as Jones tartly puts it—The Joy of Sex or the Kama Sutra.

Trump cuts funding for San Francisco festival midway through shows (SFGate)

Bay Area institutions, including SCRAP, the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and SFJAZZ lost tens of thousands of dollars in funding. But the timing may have been worst for the San Francisco International Arts Festival, which learned that the NEA had cancelled its $20,000 grant midway through its two-week event. 

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According to the NEA’s email, the agency updated its priorities; among its focuses are to “make America healthy again,” support HBCUs, “empower houses of worship to serve communities,” support tribes, “foster AI competency” and celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary. 

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Wood distinguished the sweeping funding cuts on Friday from the typical fluctuations that arts organizations experience.

“Sometimes you get a grant or you don't get a grant, and you just have to adjust what you're doing,” he said. “But this is gratuitous and this is malicious.”

Gratuitous and malicious covers much with the Trump Administration, but these cuts are the start of mind control. Control the culture, then you control what people think. Are you ready for that?

And then this came in: Kennedy Center slated for huge funding increase while local arts slashed under Trump plans (News From The States).

A White House official told States Newsroom Wednesday that Trump had worked with Congress to arrive at the Kennedy Center funding figure.

“This project is essential to advancing President Trump’s vision of restoring greatness to our Nation’s capital. Halting Anti-American propaganda is critical to protecting our children and fostering patriotism,” according to the official.

Separately, an emailed statement attributed to White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said that “President Trump cares deeply about American arts and culture, which is why he is revitalizing historic institutions like the Kennedy Center to their former greatness.”

The White House did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about the termination of other arts funding.

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