SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ: AMZN)—As part of its decade-long effort to help writers tell their stories and find their readers, the Amazon Literary Partnership today announced over $1 million in grant funding to 66 nonprofit literary organizations across the country. The funding will support groups that are working to empower writers, helping them to create, publish, learn, teach, experiment, and thrive.
Since 2009, the Amazon Literary Partnership has awarded more than $12 million in grant funding to more than 150 literary organizations, with a particular focus on supporting a diversity of voices. Grant recipients include nonprofit writing centers, residencies, fellowships, after-school classes, literary magazines, national organizations supporting storytelling and free speech, and internationally acclaimed publishers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
The Amazon Literary Partnership strives to award grants to organizations that have a deep impact on writers’ lives and the broader literary and publishing community.
- Over the past five years, organizations supported by the Amazon Literary Partnership have assisted more than 100,000 writers per year, publishing an estimated 3,200 stories and more than 500 books, reaching more than 5 million readers, according to a survey of last year’s grant recipients.
- Writers supported by Amazon Literary Partnership grant recipients have won National Book Awards, National Book Critics Circle Awards, MacArthur “Genius” Grants, National Magazine Awards, and more.
- Amazon Literary Partnership’s support for the Academy of American Poets’ ‘Poem A Day’ series led to the publication of poems by more than 300 poets from diverse backgrounds reaching half a million readers a day via email and online at Poets.org.
- Support for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) helped bring in-school and after-school writing classes to 10,000 schools, reaching 100,000 kids across the US.
In addition to the 66 grants gifted this year, the Amazon Literary Partnership has awarded two $120,000 grants to the Academy of American Poets and the Community of Literary Presses and Magazines (CLMP) to create a new Poetry Fund and Literary Magazine Fund for poetry organizations and literary magazines. Both funds will support more than a dozen organizations and will be announced by the Academy of American Poets and CLMP.
“We’re extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with the Amazon Literary Partnership to support poetry organizations, especially as poetry in the US is having a heyday with more readers today than in the past fifteen years,” said Jennifer Benka, Executive Director, the Academy of American Poets. “This boon has been exciting to see, but it's also meant that poetry organizations need more assistance. We appreciate that the Amazon Literary Partnership program was quick to recognize this and respond.”
“For over 50 years, CLMP has been dedicated to sustaining the health and extending the reach of the nation’s literary magazines. Often the first places writers find their readers, these publications are essential to the publishing ecosystem, providing fertile ground for diverse voices to thrive,” said Mary Gannon, Executive Director, the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. “CLMP is honored to lend its expertise to the Amazon Literary Partnership's ongoing financial support of these underserved and uniquely vulnerable publishers.”
“The Amazon Literary Partnership’s goal has been to support organizations that are vital to sustaining the literary culture of their communities,” said Neal Thompson, Manager of the Amazon Literary Partnership. “By funding organizations working to uplift the voices of underrepresented writers, we hope to champion the writers of the world we live in now. We are also thrilled to be working with the Academy of American Poets and CLMP to reach organizations committed to supporting poets and upcoming writers.”
This year’s grant recipients include a wide range of organizations striving to amplify diverse voices, including Coffee House Press in Minneapolis, Hugo House in Seattle, and New York-based organizations such as Words Without Borders, Kundiman, Girls Write Now, and The Center for Black Literature. Many of this year’s recipients work on behalf of overlooked or marginalized writers, such as Lambda Literary’s Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices in Los Angeles, and workshops for African American writers at the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation in Washington, D.C.
“We are thrilled to be among the organizations to receive support from the Amazon Literary Partnership again this year,” said Karen M. Phillips, Executive Director, Words Without Borders. “This grant will help us to provide an English-language platform for vital and diverse writers from Oman, the Philippines, Cape Verde, Algeria and elsewhere, engaging readers in a global literary conversation.”
“Amazon's investment in Lambda Literary's Emerging Writers Retreat ensures that the next generation of LGBTQ writers get the support they need and deserve to bring their vital stories into the world” said Sue Landers, Executive Director of Lambda.
“5 Under 35 does the crucial work of identifying and elevating major new talent, often introducing a diverse, engaging slate of writers for the first time to a wide audience,” said Lisa Lucas, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. “Without the generous, ongoing support of the Amazon Literary Partnership, 5 Under 35 simply wouldn’t be possible given the current funding landscape for the literary arts. ALP is fundamental to the work of so many national literary organizations that salute, celebrate, and nurture both readers and writers, which is essential to developing a more diverse literary landscape, strengthening access to books and great writing, and deepening all of our understanding of the world through the lens of literary art.”
2019 Amazon Literary Partnership grants
826 Valencia (CA)
826 NYC (NY)
Archipelago Books (NY)
Artist Trust (WA)
Asian American Writers Workshop (NY)
Aspen Words (CO)
AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) (MD)
Black Mountain Institute (NV)
Brooklyn Book Festival (NY)
Center for Black Literature (NY)
Chicago Humanities Festival (IL)
Clarion West (WA)
Coffee House Press (MN)
Community Word Project (NY)
Girls Write Now (NY)
Graywolf Press (MN)
GrubStreet (MA)
Hedgebrook (WA)
House of SpeakEasy Foundation (NY)
Hub City Writers Project (SC)
Hugo House (WA)
Humanities Washington (WA)
Indiana Writers Center (IN)
Inprint (TX)
Jack Jones Literary Arts (CA)
KCRW Foundation (CA)
Kenyon Review (OH)
Kundiman (NY)
Lambda Literary Foundation (CA)
Lighthouse Writers Workshop (CO)
Loft Literary Center (MN)
Log Cabin Literary Center (ID)
Milkweed Editions (MN)
Narrative 4 (NY)
National Book Foundation (NY)
National Novel Writing Month (CA)
Open Letter Books (Best Translated Book Award) (NY)
Path with Art (WA)
Poets & Writers (NY)
Port Townsend Writers Conference (Centrum) (WA)
Red Hen Press (CA)
Restless Books (NY)
Seattle Arts & Lectures (WA)
Seattle City of Literature (WA)
Slice Literary Writers Conference (NY)
Small Press Distribution (CA)
The Center for Fiction (NY)
The Feminist Press (NY)
The Inner Loop (DC)
The MacDowell Colony (NY)
The Moth (NY)
The Seattle Public Library Foundation (WA)
The Telling Room (ME)
The Writer's Block (NV)
Town Hall Seattle (WA)
Transit Books (CA)
Ucross Foundation (WY)
University of Washington Creative Writing Program (WA)
Washington Center for the Book (WA)
Washington State Historical Society (WA)
Words Without Borders (NY)
WriteGirl (CA)
Writers in the Schools (TX)
Yaddo (NY)
Young Writers Project (VT)
Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation (DC)
To learn more about the Amazon Literary Partnership and Amazon in the Community visit https://www.aboutamazon.com/our-communities.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
