2007 Grant Awards: Access to Artistic Excellence

[ August 14, 2006 deadline ]

Dance | Design | Folk & Traditional Arts | Literature | Local Arts Agencies
Media Arts | Museum | Music | Musical Theater | Presenting | Theater
Visual Arts

Some details of the projects listed below are subject to change, contingent upon prior Endowment approval.

Literature

Academy of American Poets, Inc. (Consortium)
New York, NY
$40,000
To support National Poetry Month in April 2008. In partnership with the National Council of Teachers of English, the Academy will sponsor outreach programs designed to encourage Americans to make poetry a larger part of their lives.

Arizona State University (on behalf of Virginia C. Piper Center for Creative Writing)
Tempe, AZ
$20,000
To support the Virginia C. Piper Center's Distinguished Visiting Writers Series for 2007-08. Proposed authors include C.D. Wright, Forrest Gander, Pamela Painter, MacKenzie Bezos, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ralph Angel, and Louise Gluck.

Art Sanctuary
Philadelphia, PA
$5,000
To support outreach programs associated with the year-long Celebration of Black Writing. Events will include readings, performances, workshops, and discussions targeting African Americans.

Association of Writers & Writing Programs (aka AWP)
Fairfax, VA
$70,000
To support the production, printing, and distribution of The Writer's Chronicle and the AWP Job List, continued development of the AWP Web site, and the 2008 AWP conference in New York City. AWP will promote the publications and annual conference through a 200,000-piece direct-mail campaign.

Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.
New York, NY
$25,000
To support a summer writing retreat targeting emerging African American poets. Cave Canem also will present readings and workshops at Historically Black Colleges and Universities throughout the South to promote its anthology, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South.

City University of New York Medgar Evers College (on behalf of Center for Black Literature)
Brooklyn, NY
$15,000
To support the Ninth National Black Writers Conference. Proposed writers and speakers include Charles Rowell, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Cornel West, Chris Abani, and Tayari Jones.

Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (aka CLMP)
New York, NY
$40,000
To support technical and capacity-building tools and advice for large, mid-size, and small independent literary publishers. Scheduled services include an interactive Web site, workshops, one-on-one mentoring, and networking opportunities.

Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (aka CLMP) (Consortium)
New York, NY
$7,500
To support a series of literary magazine and small press fairs in communities across the country. In partnership with The Kenyon Review, each fair will provide a hands-on venue for publishers to introduce readers to the wide variety of writing found in literary magazines and small presses.

Daily Poetry Association (aka Poetry Daily)
Charlottesville, VA
$10,000
To support the online publication, Poetry Daily, found at poems.com. The journal features a new poem every day of the year, as well as criticism and links to contemporary poetry and poets.

Georgia Tech Research Corporation (on behalf of Poetry at Tech)
Atlanta, GA
$5,000
To support artist fees and promotion for the H. Bruce McEver Poetry Reading, as well as visits by the guest poets to middle and high schools in downtown Atlanta. Invited poets include Gary Soto, Opal Moore, and Laure-Anne Bosselaar.

Haleakala, Inc. (aka The Kitchen) (Consortium)
New York, NY
$5,000
To support a series of literary events to showcase small, alternative literary publications and their writers. In partnership with the journal Open City, The Kitchen will promote the monthly series to its mailing list of 23,000 individuals.

Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, Inc. (aka HoCoPoLitSo)
Columbia, MD
$5,000
To support writer residencies, readings, workshops, school visits, and conversations throughout Howard County, Maryland. Visiting writers will discuss the process of writing on The Writing Life, a television series broadcast to more than two million Maryland residents.

Hudson Valley Writers' Center, Inc.
Sleepy Hollow, NY
$5,000
To support readings by emerging and established writers. The center will develop outreach committees to seek ways to meet the needs of youth, African Americans, Hispanics, and communities north of Sleepy Hollow.

Inprint, Inc.
Houston, TX
$20,000
To support the Inprint Brown Reading Series. Now in its 26th year, the project has brought more than 250 distinguished writers to Houston.

Just Buffalo Literary Center, Inc.
Buffalo, NY
$7,500
To support World of Voices, which brings writers to Buffalo for week-long residencies. One resident writer will be chosen for the community-wide reading initiative, If All of Buffalo Read the Same Book.

Kundiman, Inc.
New York, NY
$10,000
To support the 2007 Asian American Poetry Retreat. Targeting emerging Asian American poets, the five-day retreat will include workshops and one-on-one mentoring sessions on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Library Foundation of Hennepin County
Minnetonka, MN
$10,000
To support the 2007-08 Pen Pals Author Lecture Series. Promotion efforts will include print ads, public radio spots, and a mailing to more than 8,000 community members.

Literary Arts, Inc.
Portland, OR
$7,500
To support the Oregon Book Awards and Author Tour. Finalists will conduct readings at libraries, bookstores, and community organizations throughout the state.

Literature Alive!
Nevada City, CA
$5,000
To support literary readings in and around the Sierra foothill communities of Grass Valley and Nevada City, California. Visiting writers also will conduct workshops at local high schools.

Loft, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN
$40,000
To support The Minnesota Program for Writers. Events will include readings and on-air interviews with nationally recognized authors, and workshops and mentors for emerging writers.

Log Cabin Literary Center, Inc.
Boise, ID
$20,000
To support Readings and Conversations, a lecture series in the Egyptian Theatre in downtown Boise. Proposed writers include Mary Oliver, E.L. Doctorow, Khaled Hosseini, and Susan Orlean.

Marygrove College
Detroit, MI
$5,000
To support readings and workshops with a critically renowned African American writer as part of the college's Contemporary American Authors Lecture Series. The day-long program will be promoted through direct mailings to more than 200,000 students and community members.

Mercantile Library Association of the City of New York (aka Mercantile Library of New York)
New York, NY
$5,000
To support a series of readings and lectures by distinguished fiction writers. Proposed artists include Christine Schutt, Elizabeth Nunez, Colson Whitehead, Junot Diaz, and Jonathan Franzen.

Montana Committee for the Humanities (aka MCH)
Missoula, MT
$15,000
To support the Montana Festival of the Book. More than 100 regional authors will read and discuss their work at selected venues, reaching an estimated audience of as many as 5,000.

Mountain Writers Series
Portland, OR
$20,000
To support readings, residencies, workshops, and special events throughout the Pacific Northwest. Proposed authors include Kim Barnes, Frank X. Gaspar, Jim Harrison, Marie Howe, Edward Hirsch, Lawson Fusao Inada, Ted Kooser, Dana Levin, Alberto Álvaro Ríos, Robert Wrigley, and Al Young.

National Book Foundation, Inc.
New York, NY
$25,000
To support a series of outreach programs for National Book Award winners and finalists. Authors will conduct readings, interviews, and workshops at public schools and settlement houses throughout New York City.

Nevada Humanities Committee, Inc. (aka Nevada Humanities)
Reno, NV
$7,500
To support the Vegas Valley Book Festival, an annual multi-day program of readings, panel discussions, and literary presentations for audiences of all ages. Proposed guest writers include Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, John Hodgman, A.M. Homes, and ZZ Packer.

One Reel
Seattle, WA
$10,000
To support the literary component of the 2007 Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts, which has an annual attendance of more than 200,000. Proposed artists include Michael Cunningham, Edward P. Jones, Walter Mosley, Vikram Seth, Ned Vizzini, Curtis Sittenfeld, Adam Felber, Michael Chabon, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Sekou Sundiata.

PEN American Center, Inc. (aka PEN)
New York, NY
$40,000
To support the third annual PEN World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature. The five-day festival will feature tributes, forums, conversations, readings, and roundtable discussions in large-scale and intimate public venues.

PEN Center USA West (aka PEN USA)
Culver City, CA
$25,000
To support writing residencies and workshops for emerging writers. The project will include Emerging Voices, a one-on-one mentorship program; PEN in the Classroom, providing arts instruction for underserved Southern California high school students; and the Writers' Toolbox Series, featuring panels on the craft and business of writing.

PEN/Faulkner Foundation
Washington, DC
$10,000
To support a fiction reading series and a writers-in-the-schools program. The foundation will distribute to classrooms free copies of books preceding each author's visit.

Poetry Center of Chicago (aka The Poetry Center)
Chicago, IL
$20,000
To support readings featuring nationally renowned writers and Hands on Stanzas, a poets-in-the-schools program. Students of the program receive an anthology of their own work, free admission to readings, and opportunities to present their poetry at sites throughout the city.

Poetry Project, Ltd.
New York, NY
$10,000
To support the Monday Night and Wednesday Night Reading and Performance Series. The project will feature live presentations by more than 130 poets and performers.

Poetry Slam, Inc. (aka PSI)
Whitmore Lake, MI
$7,500
To support the 17th annual National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas. The four-day festival will showcase more than 350 poets from across the nation and abroad to an estimated audience of 16,000.

Poetry Society of America (aka PSA)
New York, NY
$35,000
To support the continuation of Poetry in Motion, a program that places poetry placards in public transportation systems throughout the country. Poetry in Motion currently reaches 12 million mass transit riders daily in cities nationwide.

Poets & Writers, Inc.
New York, NY
$75,000
To support the publication of Poets & Writers Magazine and the redesign and expansion of Poets & Writers' Web site. The Web site provides links to more than 1,500 Web sites dedicated to helping writers.

Poets & Writers, Inc. (Consortium)
New York, NY
$5,000
To support Carried Voices: Writers & Books in the West. In partnership with the YMCA of Billings, the project will bring literary events to Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, and northern California.

Poets House, Inc.
New York, NY
$40,000
To support From Lyric to Song, a series of events celebrating the opening of the new Poets House along the waterfront in Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan. Poets House will present readings, discussions, and performances to an estimated audience of 6,000.

Richard Hugo House
Seattle, WA
$5,000
To support the Hugo Literary Series, featuring readings and intensive classes by acclaimed writers. Selected writers will be commissioned to generate new literary work on a specific theme and present that work to the public.

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-Camden Campus
Camden, NJ
$10,000
To support the 20th annual Rutgers-Camden Writers' Conference, a day of free readings and writing workshops for residents of Camden and South Jersey. The scheduled keynote speakers are Lorrie Moore and Paul Muldoon.

San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA
$20,000
To support the cataloguing and digitizing of audiotapes from the Poetry Center's American Poetry Archives. The center will catalogue and record detailed contents for the most significant audiotapes dating from 1954 to 1974.

Seattle Arts & Lectures (aka SAL) (Consortium)
Seattle, WA
$25,000
To support a series of poetry readings and on-stage interviews with poets in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. In partnership with Literary Arts Inc., the organizations will mail promotional brochures to more than 27,000 individuals.

Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Inc. (aka T&W)
New York, NY
$20,000
To support the publication and related expenses of Teachers & Writers magazine, both in print and online. The collaborative also will provide additional online resources for writing teachers.

Texas A & M Research Foundation (on behalf of Callaloo Journal)
College Station, TX
$10,000
To support Writing the Self and Community, a series of public readings and writing workshops organized by the journal Callaloo. Proposed writers for the 2007-08 season include Percival Everett, Forrest Hamer, Helen Elaine Lee, and Natasha Trethewey.

University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
$20,000
To support the 45th Visiting Poets and Writers Reading and Lecture Series. The University of Arizona Poetry Center will support the series with lesson plans to K-12 teachers, community reading groups prior to each event, and an audio anthology of poems read by visiting poets.

University of Mississippi Main Campus (on behalf of Center for the Study of Southern Culture)
University, MS
$5,000
To support the 2008 Oxford Conference for the Book at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. The program will be dedicated to the Southern novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston.

University of Texas at Dallas (on behalf of American Literary Translators Association)
Richardson, TX
$40,000
To support services to enhance the professional development of literary translators. Activities include the 30th anniversary conference of the American Literary Translators Association, publication of a newsletter and issues of the Translation Review, and continued development of a Web site.

Utah Humanities Council
Salt Lake City, UT
$7,500
To support the 10th annual Great Salt Lake Book Festival. The free, three-day festival will feature readings and writing workshops by Utah writers.

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy (on behalf of Virginia Festival of the Book)
Charlottesville, VA
$20,000
To support the 14th annual Virginia Festival of the Book. The five-day festival will feature author readings, lectures, and writing workshops free-of-charge.

Woodland Pattern, Inc. (aka Woodland Pattern Book Center)
Milwaukee, WI
$20,000
To support a series of readings, exhibits, and community workshops. Proposed writers include Bei Dao, Cornelius Eady, Harryette Mullen, Juliana Spahr, and Anselm Hollo.

Writer's Garret
Dallas, TX
$20,000
To support The Writer's Studio, a radio show broadcast on KERA Public Radio FM. Taped in front of a live audience, the show features interviews with established authors.

Writers Room, Inc.
New York, NY
$5,000
To support subsidized work space for emerging writers. The Writers Room is an urban writers' colony in New York City, which provides 300 authors with work space 24 hours a day.

YMCA of Greater Syracuse
Syracuse, NY
$5,000
To support a series of free poetry readings at the Downtown Writer's Center. Scheduled poets include Minnie Bruce Pratt, Eric Gamalinda, Len Roberts, Naomi Guttman, and Michael Jennings.

Young Men's & Young Women's Hebrew Association (aka 92nd Street Y)
New York, NY
$20,000
To support the Unterberg Poetry Center Reading Series at the 92nd Street Y. The project will feature readings by established and emerging writers, and dialogues between writers and audiences about literary and related topics.

National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506