So, good news and bad.
Queer Up North has won its appeal against the Arts Council and its funding will go ahead. (Background here.)
However, the Arts Council has pulled other literature funding.
The Arts Council has had a lot of bad press recently, for obvious reasons. It strikes me however that these funding issues may not be entirely their fault – we know that money is getting rerouted from the arts and community sports into the financial black hole that is the 2012 Olympics.
But outside of this controversy, is the Arts Council fit for purpose?
A speaker at the Independents’ Day debate at the Manchester Literature Festival told the audience that the Arts Council’s funding for literature and poetry comprises just one per cent of its budget. As the speakers in this debate were all professional publishers and editors, I see no reason to disbelieve him.
One per cent. Bear in mind that literature and poetry are two of the most popular and accessible art forms in existence.
Given this indifference, I’m not sure writers should care about the Arts Council. I’ve never applied for funding myself, but I’ve heard horror stories from writers and poets about having to fill in yards of forms in which you have to jump through various ideological hoops even to be considered for a grant. I know a lot of people in Manchester’s spoken word scene and am continually amazed at the amount of mediocrity that receives grant funding, while great and innovative arts nights like Verberate and Studio Salford are all but ignored.
There’s something insulting about good and talented people having sleepless nights at the end of every fiscal year. Something deeply wrong about the idea that you have to fill in a form and present a business case to get permission to write. It distorts the creative focus; pulls it towards horrible practicalities and box-ticking, and away from actual creation.
And yet I do think the state should subsidise the arts: it would be great to have some kind of Canadian social democrat system where everyone who can demonstrate that they are serious about writing a novel can be funded to do so, regardless of whether or not it will make money.
But that’s not going to happen any time soon. The alternative choice for writers is to take a job and write in the evenings and weekend days – my own personal route.
It’s the best call, until arts funding bodies realise that they need writers and artists more than we need them.
