Plus, gearing up for this year's op-eds!
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Representing Literature
for New York State
LitNYS is the nation's largest ecosystem of literary arts organizations, building literary capacity, community, and culture for 25 years.
September Letter
Building Community
FIELD ANNOUNCEMENT
LitNYS 2025 Advancement Awards
We are pleased to announce that $95,000 in Advancement Regrants were awarded to 18 New York literary arts organizations at the August Advancement panel meeting. 2025 Advancement panelists were Michele Kotler, Founder and Executive Director of Community-Word Project; Celeste Lawson, Poet/Writer/Founder of Typography of Women; and Jafreen Uddin, Executive Director of The Asian American Writers
Workshop.
Launched in 2013, the LitNYS Advancement Program sustains New York’s literary arts community through direct support to independent publishers, presenting, and service organizations that nurture, engage, and promote contemporary writers and writing, and are themselves distinguished assets in their communities. LitNYS helps these organizations build capacity institutionally, enrich relationships with audiences, and extend the impact of their work.
This year, 29 applications were received requesting a total of $160,000. To date, LitNYS has awarded 131 capacity building Advancement Regrants of $2,500-$10,000, distributing $695,000—more than half a million dollars—statewide.
Building Capacity
LITNYS 2025 STATEWIDE CONVENING
Pro Bono Legal Counseling
Reminder that we've reserved the final morning of the Convening—Tuesday, September 16 from 9:30 AM-12 PM—for registrants to meet one-to-one with attorneys or to participate in a moderated group session. LitNYS members identified this as a top priority and we would like to give the distinguished attorneys who are joining us some idea of your questions in advance. Please take a moment to reply.
What is one legal question that has surfaced in your organization—from you, your colleagues, board, staff, and/or another stakeholder?
SPECIAL SESSION RECAP
Building Strategic Capacity through Clarity, Strategy, and Impact
On August 20, 2025, Bruce Morrow led an engaging workshop on building organizational capacity through clear, impact-focused strategies. Drawing on his years of experience, he outlined practical methods that strengthen organizations and increase sustainability:
- Budgets are roadmaps that reveal priorities, limits, and vision.
- Dream Budgets set aspirational goals; real Budgets ground growth.
- Capacity building aligns vision, money, people, and timelines.
- Fundraising blends storytelling with strategy.
- Segment donors by giving level, frequency, and interest.
- Strong boards, partnerships, and funders drive sustainability.
PARTING THOUGHTS...
"Start with the dream and build towards the real. Budgets are roadmaps that align vision, money, people, and timelines. True growth happens when fundraising blends storytelling with strategy to turn aspirations into action."
Why literature matters? Supporting literature sustains spaces where diverse voices, stories, and histories can be shared. Literature strengthens democracy, nurtures empathy, and builds cultural memory, ensuring communities stay connected, informed, and inspired."
—BRUCE MORROW, WRITER, VISUAL ARTIST & NONPROFIT LEADER
Building Leadership
Calling writers of all backgrounds and fields to apply to the Girls Write Now Collaboratory. Mentors explore a range of genres, media, and topics, benefit from professional development and networking with a talented multigenerational community—and form a bond with a young writer for life.
At Lunch with Lit, you'll feel like you're getting lunch with your smartest friends. The Lunch with Lit Podcast Series is produced by Girls Write Now, and is available through Substack, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Feast on the stories of your field!
LITNYS + GIRLS WRITE NOW PRESENT
Lunch With Lit Podcasts
Nearly 500 visionary literary leaders comprise the LitNYS coalition, enriching each other and shaping culture with our deep skills, experience, and passion for literature. Girls Write Now celebrates the unspoken heroes behind the scenes through the podcast series, Lunch with Lit. The project was kindled through interviews recorded at our last LitNYS Convening hosted by Girls Write Now, and now the podcast has come to life. Each month throughout the year LitNews NYS brings you a new episode—including updates from our featured leaders.
LUNCH WITH LIT FEATURE
Milda M. De Voe
Last month we heard from New York State Poet Laureate, Kimiko Hahn. In this episode, Milda proves that creative life doesn’t end when you become a parent, and that organizations can be doing more to support writers who are also caregivers.
Milda grew tired of hearing she couldn't be a mother and a writer. What started as a project to boost the voice of parent writers, quickly morphed into an organization on a mission to provide resources and support to parents of all backgrounds and genders. When asked if she had any advice to parents who are also writers, Milda De Voe said, “yeah, don’t start a nonprofit!”
80% of our membership are mothers, but that doesn’t mean we are just for mothers… anyone who needs us, we are there.
—MILDA M. DE VOE, FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PEN PARENTIS
I can’t wait for the Fall 2025 Literary Career Salons season to begin. We present successful writers who are also parents, discussing the maintenance of their literary careers while raising kids.
Everyone and anyone can subscribe to YouTube.com/PenParentis.
—MILDA M. DE VOE
LUNCH WITH LITNYS UPDATES
Pen Parentis Salon Series & Fall Lineup Goes Live
Pen Parentis' season is about to begin with a new batch of salons and workshops.
Tune in for one-hour interviews with small groups of successful writers who are also parents. Find out their tricks and tips for managing time, energy and money to maintain a creative writing career.
And the third week of every month, join Pen Parentis' workshops. This season's highlights include Helen Phillips and three other excellent writers talking about AI! First Up? Capturing the Story Before it is Lost— a topic dear to the hearts of all writers who have kids—featuring Nicole Cooley, Catherine Texier and Jessica Manack. Register now to be in the livecast audience on Tuesday September 9th at 7pm ET.
For parents taking on National Novel Writing Month, Pen Parents is offering a parent-friendly NaNoWriMo alternative! For twelve weeks of guided one-hour sessions on Thursdays at 12 PM EST from September 1 - November 24 sign up now.
Do you have updates you want the LitNYS community to know about?
Building Activism & Awareness
CONVERSATION STARTERS
CONVENING OP-ED PROJECT
When we come together each year at the Convening, it is to make a collective impact on the field. What better way to do this than through persuasive writing. Get inspired by recent op-eds on the importance of reading, writing, and gathering—and get ready to write your own!
2024 OP-ED
by Christiane Calixte
After absorbing the presentations, reports and panels at last year's convening, Girls Write Now mentee Christiane Calixte was shocked to find the literary world that had supported her through the social and creative isolation of COVID-19 was facing challenges from funding to censorship. So she did what we do best and put pen to paper, authoring an Op-Ed on the importance of literary organizations to young people today.
When I attended the New York State Literary Arts Convening, I learned about the stark reality and struggles that literary organizations are facing today, and I felt as if the literary world around me was crumbling.
—CHRISTIANE CALIXTE, GIRLS WRITE NOW MENTEE
2023 OP-ED
By Debora Ott, Laurie Dean Torrel & Alison Meyers
Another example from 2023 is the op-ed Drawing Water from the Well: Strategies to Flourish in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.
Interested in working on an Op-Ed around the 2025 Convening?
Building Next Gen Lit Leaders
To access this valuable lesson plan, create a Girls Write Now account–it's quick and easy!
ADVOCACY JOURNALISM
Op-Ed Workshop
Last spring, Girls Write Now hosted a capacity building workshop on the art of Op-Ed writing, using LitNYS as a case study. Analyzing materials from last year's convening, mentees brainstormed angles and learned pitching best practices.
If you weren't able to make it, you can catch us here!
THE LIT LEGACY OF
Alison Meyers
As Alison Meyers prepares for her exit from Writers & Books, she shares some thoughts on her time as Executive Director:
"It's been a privilege to serve as Writers & Books' (Rochester, NY) Executive Director for the past 6+ years, a period
during which our organization navigated a changing, often challenging, ecosystem. Thanks to a dedicated board, hard working staff, and community stakeholders, we completed a six-figure renovation of our Naples, NY, retreat campus; opened Ampersand Books, our on-site indie; launched a three-day poetry festival showcasing local and NY State-based writers; expanded youth programming into four public schools and five urban library branches; and doubled grant awards from regional and national sources. I'm delighted to pass the baton to Michael Solis, who will bring skills, intelligence and passion to lead Writers & Books into its exciting next chapter."
—ALISON MEYERS, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF WRITERS & BOOKS
Alison is a veteran nonprofit leader with previous appointments at Cave Canem Foundation (Executive Director, 2006–2016), Hill-Stead Museum, CT (Poetry Director and Director of Marketing, 2000 -2006), and Oberlin, OH, Consumers Co-op (General Manager). For many years she owned and managed an independent bookstore in Connecticut. Her work may be found in journals and anthologies and at ameyerspoet.com.
About LitNews Partners
LitNYS
LitNYS is a coalition of New York State-based literary arts organizations committed to field-building work and collective thriving. We connect individuals of shared interest and purpose helping them build and sustain capacity to foster, promote, and present the literary arts. Founded in 2001 as a New York State Council on the Arts Literature initiative, LitNYS responded to national literary leaders’ call to professionalize the field. Our comprehensive collaborative approach—through our Advancement Regrants, Mentoring Program, and Facing Pages Statewide Literary Arts Convenings—has made us the nucleus of field-sustaining work for Literature in New York State.
Girls Write Now
Brought to you in partnership with Girls Write Now, LitNews NYS is a monthly digest of features, resources, and opportunities from the LitNYS network. With attacks on our freedoms mounting daily, now is the time to strengthen and project our collective voices, and Girls Write Now is committed to facilitating connections between LitNYS partners to further this goal. For nearly three decades, Girls Write Now—a nationally award-winning nonprofit, media incubator, and multi-generational community—has broken down the barriers of gender, age, race, and poverty to mentor, teach, and connect writers and leaders across disciplines and around the nation.
