Hundreds of arts organizations to receive emergency funding

NEW YORK (AP) — A coalition of arts organizations is distributing more than $4 million in aid to nonprofits around the U.S. that have sustained losses during the pandemic.

The Literary Arts Emergency Fund, established in 2020, includes the Academy of American Poets, the Community of Literary Magazine & Presses and the National Book Foundation. It will distribute $4.3 million in funding to 313 literary arts organizations and publishers around the country.

Beneficiaries range from the Asian American Writers' Workshop to the Texas Book Festival. The emergency fund, which allotted $3.5 million in 2020, was made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

“These grants remain vital because the impact of the emergency of COVID-19 remains very present in our lives,” Elizabeth Alexander, president of the Mellon Foundation, said in a statement Thursday.

“Throughout the United States, readers, writers, poets, students, and teachers rely on our country’s vibrant ecosystem of literary magazines, presses, and organizations— one that reveals the power and the possibility of the literary arts to the broader public. We are proud to continue our support for this emergency fund and look forward to the remarkable poetry and literature it will help cultivate."

But the grants will not cover all, or even most of the losses of its recipients. According to the Literary Fund, those being supported project a cumulative deficit of more than $18 million.

“In some ways, this year was even more challenging than last year for literary organizations and publishers as there were fewer opportunities to receive emergency funding but also increased costs including producing hybrid events,” Ruth Dickey, executive director of the National Book Foundation, said in a statement.

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