Weekly Round-Up: NEA Cuts, Man Booker Prize, and F. Scott Fitzgerald

ByEvelyn Noyes

NEA-logo; Art Works

From NEA budget cuts to a new F. Scott Fitzgerald story, here’s the latest literary news:

  • President Trump’s recent budget plan, which includes the proposed elimination of government funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, has small presses around the country concerned. Small Press Distribution, a group based out of Berkeley, receives roughly $1.2 million annually from the NEA. SPD executive director Jeffrey Lependorf said the cut could be “the difference between existing and not existing” for many small presses supported by SPD. (Editor’s Note: Ploughshares has received many grants from the NEA over the course of its history, including one for FY17.)
  • The Man Booker International Prize announced its 2017 longlist. The International Prize is awarded to the year’s best fiction that is translated to English and published in the UK. Nick Barley, chair of the 2017 judging panel, said: “It’s been an exceptionally strong year for translated fiction. Our longlist consists of books that are compulsively readable and ferociously intelligent.” The shortlist will be revealed on April 20, and the winner on June 14. The longlist is available on the Prize’s website.
  • A previously unpublished short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald has been made available by the New Yorker. “The I.O.U.” was written in 1920, the same year Fitzgerald published the novel This Side of Paradise and the collection Flappers and Philosophers. “The I.O.U.” will be featured in an upcoming Fitzgerald collection, I’d Die for You and Other Lost Stories, and is currently available to read online.

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