I read this and thought, Wouldn’t it be loverly?
If newspapers were dying and reading was “at risk,” why not have the NEA sponsor an online book site that would function very much like the WPA Federal Writers Project? A place where emerging critics hustling from newspaper to newspaper could find a place to hone their thoughts about literature. A place that could subsidize current print critics, litbloggers, literary podcasters, and other parties. Something that would involve hard editing and encouragement. Essays that were just as committed to novels in translation, small presses, genre, and the like as they were the latest volume from John Updike. Not only would such a site be a training ground for emerging critics, but it would also be a place for freelancers to go when the newspaper markets dried up. Why not put the money in the hands of the impassioned and the thoughtful? After all, if they have the ability to get people thinking about reading, doesn’t this make more sense than spending money on a program in which the NEA deems one book — in this case, The Maltese Falcon — that everybody needs to read?
Oddly enough, when Ed Champion proposed this idea to someone who could actually do something about it — David Kipen, Director of Literature for the National Endowment for the Arts — it met with a cool reception. But the canapes were prime!
Filed under: art, authors, blogging, books, interviews, podcasts, publishing, reading, writing | Tagged: David Kipen, edrants.com, NEA, reading at risk
