Literary Arts Fund

“I think part of our supreme duty as poets is to offer language for what was formerly unutterable to people.”

—Danez Smith

“If you have to retell the story from another point of view, you learn something about what happened that can’t be known by just reading the history, or by delving into the mechanics of a legal position, or by studying the sociology or the psychology of it. Fiction for me is special that way.”

—Karen Tei Yamashita

“There really is something just so satisfying and magical about a well-crafted short story. It’s like a pocket universe unto itself.”

—Gina Chung

“I’ve begun a practice of reading something slowly each day, and that’s helped me with being more present as I read. It forces me to slow down, to pay attention to the details, to consider how one sentence leads into the next.”

—Laura Spence-Ash

“Poetry distills language and requires that you slow down, spend time with each word. It asks you to listen and to co-create alongside the poet.”

—Ciona Rouse

“We go to literature to feel less alone in the world.”

—Tiana Clark