There’s a lot that could be said about “telling one’s story,” but the part of the conference that was most interesting to me was the advocacy update. For those who don’t move in this sphere, nonprofit presses and literary organizations are pretty much always in trouble. Some of the larger ones—the Graywolfs and Dalkeys and Copper Canyons of the world—are a bit better off due to the number of years that they’ve survived, their typical sales levels, the number of donors who support them on a regular basis. But the vast majority of these places are a couple failed grant proposals away from shutting down.

Which is scary. These presses and reading series and literary centers and arts in education organizations are doing some really interesting programming—in part because outside funding mechanisms allows them a certain freedom from market pressures. And although great books would still be published if the nonprofits all folded, the whole of book culture would suffer a huge loss.

This is a hard point to get across for any number of reasons, but the idea of any arts field being 100% subjected to market forces scares the shit out of me. That’s partially due to my socialist tendencies, but mostly because I believe culture is best off if there’s a mix of money making endeavors and those that are serving a slightly difference audience/goal. I want to live in a world where not everything is valued solely by how much money it makes.

That’s a pretty traditional view (culture is good for civilization, arts need to be protected from marketplace pressures) and one of the reasons why things like the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts exist. For decades, these government entities have helped support thousands of artists and organizations. Sure, some of the organizations are better than others, and sometime the money distribution isn’t perfect, but nevertheless, NEA and NYSCA grants have been absolutely essential.

Well. The culture wars come and go, but no matter what, arts are always a target when it comes time to cut spending. (Which is utter bullshit, but that’s not the point of this post.) So now that the banks have ruined our world for the foreseeable future, NYSCA is facing at least a 10% cut in funding, and Obama has recommended a 17% reduction in funding for the NEA.

Just to put this in a bit of perspective, the NEA’s funding is essentially the same as it was back in the mid-1980. The mid-1980s! When gas was $1.20 a gallon and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was around 2,000.

Anyway, in talking about this, the conversation moved into advocacy and the need to advocates for not just funding for the arts, but funding for literature in general. Cause if the arts are in trouble, literature is especially screwed.

This got me thinking about advocating for literature, and it seems like there are three or four main obstacles to overcome if we’re going to protect the nonprofit literary organizations in the U.S.:

1) Most of the people involved in literature work for for profits. This is a huge difference from theater and museums and symphonies and dance companies and whatnot. In most (all?) of the other arts disciplines, 99% of the people involved work for nonprofits. They value the nonprofit ideal and are committed to fundraising and the concept of donation-supported arts organizations. But books? I suspect that 95% of the people working in the industry are working for Bertelsmann or its equivalent. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the idea that “books should make money” sort of trickles down, and the remaining 5% of us are on an island, trying to convince the world of the worth of public funding for nonprofit presses. That’s a pretty shitty battle to be fighting. And a huge disparity from the other arts fields.

2) Kids don’t do advocacy. I’m not sure exactly how one advocates for the arts, but in talking about what we could do, the common refrain was that we should organize, meet with representatives, show up in their offices, etc. Which sounds so old fashioned. Anyone under the age of 40 would much rather send an email or write a blog post (witness) or something that’s much more in line with how we function in the world. But the olds like their meetings. And their way of doing things. Which is why all these other lobbyists are so effing successful. Since only a portion of the book world is even interested, we’d get a lot more done if we could seize on the passion of our young, underpaid, still quixotic constituents. But convincing them that they should meet with representatives about literature? Please.

3) No one is allowed to do this. My understanding is that most all of us have to do any and all advocacy work outside of actual work. There are tons of regulations and rules and all that, which are necessary and protective, but which don’t help the microscopic three-person press that’s doing any and everything it can do to stay alive from one $5,000 grant to the next. Other industries have a huge advantage here. Without getting myself into trouble, I’m just going to say that I suspect things are a little different elsewhere.

4) There’s no money for lobbyists. Even other arts disciplines have more lobbyists working to ensure that they’re part of the conversation. Literature has one part-time person who isn’t even based in D.C. He’s a genius, and an awesome individual, but still.

Thinking about all of this—most people in books aren’t concerned with this issue, no one has any time, no one wants to do things in the old-fashioned way—left me feeling pretty discouraged. All the issues surrounding arts funding, such as the allocation of funds, funding policies, etc., are fascinating, but it just seems so bleak . . . And like it would take a brilliant new group of 20-somethings who are dedicated to arts, interested in government, and savvy enough to figure out new modes of engagement to fix this system. Otherwise, a 20% this year will become a 25% next time there’s a budget crunch (or whatever) and over time things will become a bit less diverse. And you won’t even realize what is lost until it’s gone for good.

Anyway, in order to try and up that percentage to .06 or higher, did what any denizen of the digital age would do to ensure their voice is heard: started an By signing this “We Are More” manifesto, you’ll show your support for some rather reasonable statements, including:

The arts, culture and the humanities engage and inspire us, and stimulate us to challenge the world we live in. Investing in the arts from kindergarten to old age builds societies that are creative, innovative, democratic and diverse.

Let us re-imagine long-term public investment that contributes to human, social and environmental progress.

I personally agree with these (hard not you, you know?), and although I’m not sure what effect online petitions really have (I mean, the petition hasn’t made “Competitive Vertical Gymnastics” a household term yet, so . . . ), I’ll sign onto this . . .

But only if “We the Many” take down that god awful seizure-inducing image at the top of the screen. What is that even supposed to be? Flashing neon confetti? I might be able decipher more if it didn’t make me twitch every time I stared at if for more than 13 seconds.

That said, this ghastly image does provide good reason for spending a few extra EU bucks on culture—please, EU, please teach your people not to do this on websites. That would be a service for all.

Well, on Tuesday, this cut became official—the money is gone and all the grants from the Nov/Dec funding cycle have been eliminated. This is really unfortunate, and will probably impact the FY10 NYSCA budget as well. Supposedly, organizations that got stiffed this time around will be first in line to get grants next year, but as a whole, NYSCA will probably have less money to grant and there are probably a number of organizations that won’t make it that long.

Not a particularly good day for news about public arts funding . . .

We have two grants that were approved, but are stuck in this fiscal limbo: one to pay Margaret Schwartz for her translation of Macedonio Fernandez’s The Museum of Eterna’s Novel, and the other to support our Reading the World Conversation Series, which brings authors such as Bragi Olafsson, Dubrakva Ugresic, Salman Rushdie, and Umberto Eco to Rochester. Um, great.

As arts organizations across New York lose their funding, I’m glad to report that it looks like the New York Yankees will receive This coming on top of the $942 million they got just a few years ago. All to build a stadium that’s smaller that the former one.

At least both the arts and the Yankees will be reducing their audience base, although it’s ironic that this will happen thanks to one group losing money and the other gaining it.

(And yes, I know that the Yankees’ funding isn’t from the same pot as NYSCA’s, but whatever. They spend $432 million on three players and deserve a bit of bashing, especially considering that all NYSCA is asking for is a measly—in comparison—$7 million.)

If you’re interested in trying to help, the has organized a special “Action Alert Arts Day” in Albany on Tuesday to lobby against these cuts.

Or you can use to send a letter to you legislator.

If you specifically want to help Open Letter, our translators and authors, you can always click on the link below . . .

Man, what a pleasant Friday.

As part of his series, today’s show focuses on “Arts and Culture Funding,” looking at Obama’s and McCain’s positions, etc.

It’s great when arts funding gets some public attention, but what’s really innovative is that Lehrer set up a special to allow listeners and others help to frame the show, recommend guests, suggest questions, etc.

The comments and suggestions on the wiki are pretty interesting, although it’s disappointing that there’s not a lot of info on funding for literature. Once again, us literary people don’t have our shit together to influence the public dialogue. Regardless, the show, which airs today at 10am EDT and can be heard live on and should be available as a podcast shortly thereafter.

It used to be, in the 1960s and ’70s, that the arts were considered good for national unity, for our sense of collective purpose and identity. We were seen then as a youngish, emerging country with an identity that needed forging.

Then, in the 1980s and ’90s, the message changed. We began hearing that the creative arts were good for the economy. [. . .]

That argument continues today but with a bit of a twist: On the Globe’s op-ed page, we read: “Want a culture of innovation? Fund our artists.”

Innovation is the new buzzword for the so-called value-added economy: Wealth is now created primarily through intellectual capital, not natural resources. Japan and Microsoft taught us that we don’t need coal and wood and mounds of potash: We need smarts.

What might be even more interesting than this slight shift from economics to innovation (leading back to economics, of course) is the new “arts are good for you” push:

I quote from the Toronto Star, Aug 10: “Read Novels, be Smarter:”

“For the first time in history there is now scientific evidence that reading fiction has psychological benefits” says Keith Oatley, University of Toronto psychologist and an award winning novelist (The Case of Emily V.)

In a series of experiments using people who liked and disliked fiction, professor Oatley apparently discovered that fiction readers demonstrated “substantially greater empathy” than their counterparts.

Nearly 200 arts organisations in England have been told that their funding will end from next April in the biggest and most bloody cull since the Arts Council was set up more than 50 years ago.

Pre-Christmas letters from Arts Council England have been dropping on the mats of groups across the arts, telling them they cannot expect to continue receiving public money.

Many organisations will, however, have had good news. Of the 990 bodies which get funding, three-quarters have been told to expect inflation or above rises. [. . .]

The Arts Council admitted the pre-Christmas timing was bad, but said “tough decisions” had to be made. I