The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government by an act of the U.S. Congress, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 29, 1965. It is a sub-agency of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The "NEA Four", Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes, were performance artists whose proposed grants from the United States government's National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) were vetoed by John Frohnmayer in June 1990. Grants were overtly vetoed on the basis of subject matter after the artists had successfully passed through a peer review process. John Fleck was vetoed for a performance comedy with a toilet prop. The artists won their case in court in 1993 and were awarded amounts equal to the grant money in question, though the case would make its way to the United States Supreme Court in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, which ruled in favour of the NEA's decision making process. In response, the NEA, under pressure from Congress, stopped funding individual artists.
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and arts patrons by the United States government. Nominations are submitted to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory committee of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), who then submits its recommendations to the White House for the President of the United States to award. The medal was designed for the NEA by sculptor Robert Graham.
Michael Dana Gioia is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist.
Rudolfo Anaya was an American author. Noted for his 1972 novel Bless Me, Ultima, Anaya was considered one of the founders of the canon of contemporary Chicano and New Mexican literature. The themes and cultural references of the novel, which were uncommon at the time of its publication, had a lasting impression on fellow Latino writers. It was subsequently adapted into a film and an opera.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), every year honors up to seven jazz musicians with Jazz Master Awards. The National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowships are the self-proclaimed highest honors that the United States bestows upon jazz musicians. The award is usually given late in a performer's career after they have long established themselves.
Fiction Collective Two (FC2) is an author-run, not-for-profit publisher of avant-garde, experimental fiction supported in part by the University of Utah, the University of Alabama Press, Central Michigan University, Illinois State University, private contributors, arts organizations and foundations, and contest fees.
Michael Moloney was an Irish-born American musician and scholar. He was the artistic director of several major arts tours and co-founded Green Fields of America.
John Patrick Williams is an American Democratic legislator who represented Montana in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1997.
Nancy Willard was an American writer: novelist, poet, author and occasional illustrator of children's books. She won the 1982 Newbery Medal for A Visit to William Blake's Inn.
The Massachusetts Review is a literary quarterly founded in 1959 by a group of professors from Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It receives financial support from Five Colleges, Inc., a consortium which includes Amherst College and four other educational institutions in a short geographical radius.
Alfred Bennett Spellman is a poet, music critic, and arts administrator. Considered a part of the Black Arts Movement, he first received attention for his book of poems entitled The Beautiful Days (1965). In 1966, he published a book on the then recent history of jazz entitled Four Lives in the Bebop Business. From 1975 to 2005, he worked as an arts administrator for the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been instrumental in supporting jazz in the United States. A recording of his creative collaboration with Jeff Scott and the Imani Winds, titled Passion for Bach and Coltrane and featuring Spellman's narration, won the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium.
David Mura is an American author, poet, novelist, playwright, critic and performance artist whose writings explore the themes of race, identity and history. In 2018, Mura has published a book on creative writing, A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity & Narrative Craft in Writing, in which he argues for a more inclusive and expansive definition of craft.
Sarabande Books is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1994. It is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, with an office in New York City. Sarabande publishes contemporary poetry and nonfiction. Sarabande is a literary press whose books have earned reviews in the New York Times.
The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) is an American nonprofit organization of independent literary publishers and magazines, that "channels small sums to little magazines publishing poetry and fiction."
Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. is an arts organization-in-residence at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Since its inception in 1976, Franklin Furnace has been identifying, presenting, archiving, and making avant-garde art available to the public. Franklin Furnace focuses on time-based art forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, cultural bias, politically unpopular content or their ephemeral or experimental nature. Franklin Furnace is dedicated to serving emerging artists by providing both physical and virtual venues for the presentation of time-based art, including but not limited to artists' books and periodicals, site-specific installations, performance art, and live art on the internet.
Cinco Puntos Press is an imprint of publishing company Lee & Low Books. It is a general trade publisher that has received attention for its bilingual children's books and fiction and non-fiction focusing on the Mexico–United States border region. It was founded by novelist Lee Merrill Byrd and poet Bobby Byrd in 1985 and sold to Lee & Low in June 2021. It is known for its multi-cultural and political focus for both children and adults.
David Kipen is an author, critic, broadcaster, arts administrator, full-time UCLA writing faculty member and nonprofit bilingual lending librarian. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Alta Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, OZY.com and elsewhere. Former literature director of the National Endowment for the Arts, he lives in his native Southern California.
Paul Hendrickson is an American author, journalist, and professor. He is a senior lecturer and member of the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a former member of the writing staff at the Washington Post.
Brooks Haxton is an American poet and translator. His publications include nine books of original poems and four books of translations from the German, the French, and ancient Greek. In 2014 he published Fading Hearts on the River, a book of nonfiction about his son's professional poker career.
