When the Department of Government Efficiency gutted the staff of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the spring, it also terminated NEH grants, including those made under the Biden administration. Just like the NEA, the NEH awards grants to support the work of authors and scholars.
On Friday, the Authors Guild won a victory when a New York federal court blocked the government’s unprecedented termination of 1,400 grants to scholars and authors. According to the press release from the Guild, “The decision protects not only the 1,400 affected scholars but establishes important precedent that federal agencies cannot use funding decisions to enforce ideological conformity in violation of the First Amendment.”
While the NEH funds cannot be immediately released because only a different court can order the payment, the judge ordered that the funds be retained and not obligated until a trial can be held. Learn more.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
