The State Department pulled $1 million in funding for the Iowa International Writing Program.
Photo from the IWP’s webpage.
The legendary and beloved International Writing Program was told on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs was terminating their federal funding. The loss amounts to around $1 million of IWP’s budget, which will severely impact their programs. The Program has been fostering an international community of writers and translators — 1,600 writers from over 160 countries — since it began in 1967, and its co-founders were nominated for the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in cultural diplomacy. Three participating writers have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and one received the Booker Prize. The loss of funding is a major potential blow for America’s place in the international literary community.
IWP Director Christopher Merrill stated that the Program will continue, but in a diminished capacity:
We are devastated by the abrupt end of this 58-year partnership and are working closely with the Office of General Counsel and the university’s grant accounting office to review the terminations, understand their full impact, and respond in the best interest of the organization. Despite this disappointing turn of events, the IWP’s mission remains the same and, with the help of a small number of other partners, we will still hold a 2025 fall residency as we also pursue new sources of funding.
The State Department explained that the IWP’s programs and awards “no longer effectuate agency priorities” and don’t align “with agency priorities and national interest.” But it seems clear that this is part of a larger agenda to snuff out anything internationally minded, especially if it is perceived to be promoting anything straying from a narrowly defined white and male vision of “normality.” America’s budget has never been generous to the arts, but this neo-segregationist administration is rapidly moving our country to new lows of cultural investment.
Fortunately, IWP also gets funding from donors, grants, NGOs, and foreign ministries of culture, which will allow some of their programming to continue. But their summer youth program has been canceled, as well as their Lines and Spaces Exchanges, Distance Learning courses, and Emerging Voices Mentorship Program. And the number of participants in their Fall Residency program, usually around 30, will be cut in half.
The IWP has vowed to seek more funding in order to continue “to promote mutual understanding through creative writing and literature.” If you’d like to support the work that the IWP does, you can donate to help keep the Program going.
