Navigating Tyranny, or, A Rather Vague and Nameless Horror

A post by Kurt Milberger

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

I want to share an ethical dilemma. In one of my other roles, I serve as the Editorial Director of The Headlight Review, a literary magazine produced in the MAPW program at Kennesaw State. Recently, we’ve been working to refine the journal’s mission and expand our capacity. And, we’ve been looking for money. And in the nonprofit literary world, that means applying for grants. Now, when it comes to grants, the federal government is a white whale, and for the last year, the National Endowment for the Arts has been our Moby Dick.

We started designing our proposal for the NEA’s Grants for Arts Projects back in June or July. In meeting after meeting, we imagined how Headlight might emphasize our Southern identity and better serve the writers in our region, increase the quality and quantity of our publications, and expand our offerings to include additional print editions, full-length collections of poetry, and award-winning chapbooks. The money will pay for judges and staff, for professional designers, and to promote the magazine. We thought about means of building capacity to do community service work and how the journal might feature more underrepresented voices, such as those of the incarcerated, the LGBTQ+ community, and even veterans and retirees. We refined our proposal and sharpened our harpoons.

If you’ve been following the news, you know where this is going.