Attendees gather in front of ACW at the 2022 Writers Festival. (Provided photo)

SARANAC LAKE — Adirondack Center for Writing has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $15,000.

This grant will support ACW’s 2024 Kickass Writers Festival. In total, the NEA will award 1,135 Grants for Arts Projects awards totaling more than $37 million as part of its second round of fiscal year 2024 grants.

“Projects like ACW’s Kickass Writer’s Festival exemplify the creativity and care with which communities are telling their stories, creating connection and responding to challenges and opportunities in their communities–all through the arts,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson. “So many aspects of our communities such as cultural vitality, health and well-being, infrastructure and the economy are advanced and improved through investments in art and design, and the National Endowment for the Arts is committed to ensuring people across the country benefit.”

The Kickass Writers Festival, held on June 7 and 8, featured writers, poets, comedians and other creatives from across the country. The festival is a celebration of how writing and storytelling — in all of their forms — are essential to art, entertainment and social change and included readings, workshops, publishing programs, special performances, a book fair, a stand-up show and more.

“This generous funding from the NEA means that not only can we bring the most exciting writers, poets and comedians to the region, it also means we can keep the cost of attending the festival very low,” said Nathalie Thill, executive director of ACW. “In fact, the kickoff event on Friday evening, which features legends like the NYS poet, Patricia Spears Jones, and the former Women of the World Poetry Slam winner, Denice Frohman, is absolutely free, as are many other events in the festival. What a gift we can give our community, all due to this funding.”