We are writing to you at a time of great uncertainty amidst the ongoing cuts to federal arts funding and other threats to artistic and intellectual freedom. Today, we are asking you to consider donating and helping ASF in reaching our $30,000 campaign goal to sustain our work.
At an issue launch event for ASF 81 at the Austin Film Society, Coeditor Rebecca Markovits spoke of guest Fernando A. Flores’s tenacity and outspokenness about the importance of storytelling, borrowing a quote from a recent Texas Monthly interview in which Fernando had said: “Writing is, to me, a dangerous thing, especially now. [People] wouldn’t ban books if they didn’t feel books are dangerous. So I’m like, ‘What is the most dangerous thing I can do in the battlefield of the imagination?’”
Your end-of-year donation will help us to amplify the rich, varied, and essential stories of contemporary American life—from the Texas Hill Country to Bogotá—at a time when that diversity of viewpoints is increasingly under threat, from school libraries to college campuses, to the halls of government. It will also provide critically essential funding to shore up one of Austin’s premiere literary institutions at a very uncertain time for our organization, our writers, and the community at large.
For thirty-four years, ASF has published work that challenges and enlightens, that offers a kind of expertise in humanity. More than ever, we believe the experience of reading and sharing good literature is a profound way to connect across divides and recognize each other in a story.
Thank you for your ongoing support of American Short Fiction. It means everything to us.
Gratefully yours,
Adeena Reitberger + Rebecca Markovits
Coeditors, American Short Fiction