When the National Endowment for the Humanities terminated in-progress and approved grants last month, it seemed only a matter of time before the same would happen at the National Endowment for the Arts. So it wasn’t a surprise when, on Friday night, NEA grant recipients started receiving emails that their grants were terminated or withdrawn effective May 31, 2025.
The list of literary arts organizations receiving NEA grants in 2025 is a long one—more than 50—and at least 45 of them have had their grants pulled. They include publishers such as Milkweed Editions, McSweeney’s, Transit Books, n+1, One Story, Red Hen Press, ZYZZYVA, Electric Lit, Hub City Writers Project, and the Paris Review. See a full list here of organizations that have confirmed their NEA funding has been canceled.
Adding to the blow, longtime NEA senior officials, including Amy Stolls, head of the literary arts division, announced their resignations on Monday. Michael Paulson in the New York Times writes, “It is not clear how or whether the agency would issue grants without this tier of officials.”
While the cuts will definitely hurt, for many nonprofits NEA grants represent a small percent of their overall budget. On Blue Sky, Meg Reid, founder of Hub City Writers Project, said their NEA grant of $25,000 was 4 to 8 percent of their budget.
Arts and humanities organizations of all kinds have been soliciting private donations and community support to keep programs afloat. The University of Iowa, which lost government funding for its International Writing Program (funded through the State Department) earlier this year, has found an investor to make a $250,000 donation. The Mellon Foundation has announced $15 million in emergency funding for the Federation of State Humanities Councils, which saw $65 million of its funding eliminated by the NEH.
For more reporting on the NEA cuts, read the New York Times (gift link) and Publishers Weekly.
- Related: In his 2026 budget proposal, Trump has called for eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Learn more in the New York Times (gift link).
- Update about the canceled NEH grants: Three humanities organizations have filed a lawsuit against the NEH and DOGE for its actions. Read at ARTnews.
- Update about the IMLS: A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle the IMLS, among other federal agencies. The administration’s refusal to spend funds allocated by Congress clearly “usurped Congress’s power of the purse and ‘legislative supremacy’” in violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers, the judge found. Learn more at Publishers Weekly.
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.
