NEA Axes Grant

The National Endow­ment for the Arts has canceled all the creative writing fellowships awarded for 2026. Grant win­ners were notified by email that the writing cat­egory had been “withdrawn by the Agency.” The recipients, all published prose writers and poets, were to receive up to $50,000 each. The NEA state­ment said it “is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the Administration. Consequently we are cancelling existing funding opportunities that fall outside these new priorities.” Funding for the “furtherance of the Administration’s agenda” will instead focus on “AI competency” and “skilled trade jobs,” making “the District of Columbia safe and beautiful.” This is the latest in a series of cuts to arts support by the Trump administration.