Statewide Convening Sept 14-16 + Individual Giving Session June 18
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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.
June Letter
Building Community
2025 LITNYS STATEWIDE CONVENING
Leading in a Liminal Season:
Adaptive Strategies for Growth
While Staying Sane
September 14-16,
434 Columbia Street, Hudson, NY 12534
Time & Space Limited
Liminal seasons are defined as being “betwixt and between” when we’ve left the past but don’t yet know where the future is taking us. Liminal seasons are challenging, disorienting, and unsettling. Even as we strive to move forward with purpose and certainty, we feel as if in quicksand, overwhelmed by uncertainty as we leave the comfortable known and move toward a future not yet in view.
If we can reposition ourselves to a stance of wonder and curiosity, companioning, collaborating with, and accompanying each other, this can be a freeing season in which old structures and identities are released and new possibilities brought forward. The 2025 Convening invites you into community during a time of quantum shift rapid clip evolution to pave the way together towards a hope-filled future.
Stay tuned for the full agenda, to be released late June.
Building Capacity
You’ll learn practical strategies to implement, grow, and sustain your giving efforts, including how to frame your plan, identify potential supporters, engage board members, and set realistic, growth-oriented goals.
LITNYS SPECIAL FUNDRAISING SESSION
That Good Feeling
That Comes from Giving
Wednesday, June 18, 10AM- 12PM EST
Virtual on Zoom, Free with Registration
Giving is more than a transaction—it’s a powerful tool for connection and impact. As you start regrouping for the summer, Community-Word Project's Founder & Executive Director Michele Kotler, provides a blueprint for your individual giving plan that will at once build your revenue and your community. This workshop will guide you through the process of developing a thoughtful, sustainable individual giving plan that aligns with your values as it reinforces community.
LITNYS CONVENING, OPENING SESSION
Planning for Strategic Growth with CLMP
September 14, 4:30PM
Hudson, New York
To help kick off our Fall Convening, Mary Gannon, Executive Director of the Community of Literary Magazines & Press (CLMP), will be joined by Steering Committee members of LitNet, a national coalition of literary organizations, for a discussion about how changes to federal funding, especially the National Endowment for the Arts, have affected the literary arts field on a national level, and how literary organizations and publishers are responding.
Building Leadership
At Lunch with Lit, you'll feel like you're getting lunch with your smartest friends! Feast on the stories of your field.... The Lunch with Lit Podcast Series is produced by Girls Write Now, and is available through Substack, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
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 captures and pays tribute to our heroes behind the scenes through a 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
Ruth Dickey, National Book Foundation
Last month we enjoyed Lit Lunch with Linda Kleinbub of Pink Tree Press, along with Literary Agent & Editor Ira Silverberg. In our next episode, we meet Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, Ruth Dickey. You may know about the National Book Awards, but did you know that the Foundation has a science and literature program? Or that they have created free literary programming in all 50 states? Ruth discusses the many ways that NBF is spreading access to literature across the nation, and why literary organizations are vital to creating opportunities for writers and readers alike. For over 30 years Ruth has been working to build communities around writing and the arts from DC to Los Angeles to Seattle and beyond. In addition to being a revered leader, Ruth is the author of three books, winning the Larry Neal Writing Award and nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
"Having the opportunity to tell our stories… is incredibly empowering and incredibly important. We all win when there are more and more stories in the world."
—RUTH DICKEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION
"In these challenging times, opportunities to gather and connect around books feel particularly precious."
—RUTH DICKEY
Do you have updates you want the LitNYS network to know?
LUNCH WITH LIT UPDATES
Books, Books & More Books!
The National Book Foundation has been hard at work bringing authors to all parts of the country and helping donate books to children and families living in 62 public housing communities. This includes 33,000 books to 10 new NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) communities! The NFB is launching their annual Adult Summer Reading Adventure on Tuesday, May 27—get a chance to win a grand prize trip to the 76th National Book Awards Ceremony! Ruth will also be celebrating the 20th anniversary of her "5 Under 35" program at Littlefield in Brooklyn on Wednesday, June 4. Join her in person or online! Get your tickets today.
Building Activism & Awareness
No NEA? We Seek Out the NEW
Over the last month, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has rolled back funding across arts and youth education organizations. The literary arts world is no exception. As we prepare for a leaner year, we invite members of the LitNYS network to share how they're planning, restructuring, and collaborating in new ways.
NEW OUTLOOKS FROM THE NETWORK
Nightboat Books
"While this loss of funding is profound, Nightboat believes in the power of community coming together in times of crisis and state repression to support each other. After 20 years of publishing queer and trans writing, and seeing the myriad pathways that these texts have taken to publication—circulating through support networks of friends, archives, magazines, and small presses—we know that this work is unstoppable. Resilience is a collaborative project, and now is the time for the wider literary community to step up and support the writers and small presses that we love." —STEPHEN MOTIKA, DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER, NIGHTBOAT BOOKS
Now is the time to draft your op-ed! Get it ready to submit this September, coinciding with the Convening and the start of fall programming!
Girls Write Now Mentee Christiane Calixte is ready to publish her LitNYS-inspired op-ed, and we welcome intros to journalists in your networks!
ADVOCACY JOURNALISM PD
Girls Write Now on Op-Ed Writing: A LitNYS Case Study
After reviewing CLMP's Literary Arts Impact Report on Nonprofit Compensation at last year's LitNYS Convening, Girls Write Now decided to take action. So, we produced a course about the art of Op-Ed writing, and used LitNYS as our case study. Upon encountering this data for the first time, many mentors and mentees were shocked, but also inspired, to see behind the curtain of the literary arts world. They wanted to learn how the organizations they love keep things running smoothly.
At Girls Write Now's latest workshop, to which all LitNYS leaders were invited, we focused on the key points to use in an op-ed, and how to perfect a pitch. The response from participants? "Please have more of these! Things like this are important!"
Building Next Gen Lit Leaders
Envisioning the Future of Literature
No matter our individual missions, our collective vision at LitNYS must be centered on the next generation of literary lovers and leaders. Each month we'll meet young talent inheriting the beauty and pain we'll inevitably pass down to them—and show how, with help from LitNYS organizations, our youth are harnessing it for good.
"CWP was the first place I learned my voice not only mattered but was deserving of a platform and the ability to use it fearlessly"
-KAYLA DIKE, COMMUNITY-WORD PROJECT
THE NETWORKS'S NEXT GENERATION
Kayla Dike,
Community-Word Project
Kayla Dike first came to Community-Word Project (CWP) at age 14 as a student from Queens. At CWP, she worked alongside NYU professors using engineering and technology to amplify the voices of her and her peers. Kayla was supported by CWP throughout high school—and she just graduated from Purchase College with a degree in Studio Production & Arts Management. Last month Kayla opened CWP's 25th Anniversary Benefit, and as they celebrated the organization's first quarter century, Kayla stood as a proud representative of the future of literary arts.
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. 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.
