Arc refused future funding

Arc Publications heard on Wednesday 30 March that it was one of 206 arts organizations in England that would lose their Arts Council England funding at the end of the coming financial year. There will, of course, be other streams of funding, notably from the National Lottery (Grants for the Arts), that Arc can apply for, but these are only to support specific ‘projects’ over a maximum 2-year period and cannot be used to underpin our day-to-day activities, nor our future development. This obviously is enormously destabilising for an active, energetic press like Arc.

Although we made no assumptions about the success, or otherwise, of our application for ACE National Portfolio Funding, we remain puzzled and hurt by ACE’s apparent disregard for our publishing record, the artistic excellence and cultural diversity of our list, our uncompromisingly high production standards and our willingness to take risks to promote new voices to new audiences, all of which drew uniformly high praise from Arts Council England’s own independent assessors in 2010. We thought that ACE would be proud to continue to support a small press whose work and reputation is known throughout the world…

We have been overwhelmed by messages of support for Arc (we will be putting them up on the Blog shortly) and we are deeply, deeply touched by them. You cannot imagine how important they are to us at this low point – if you would like to add to them, please don’t hesitate to email us at arc.publicationsbtconnect.com. Thank you all.

And what of the future of Arc? The good news is that we are determined to continue publishing, and that we will not compromise in terms of quality or reach. With regular funding gone, book sales will, of course, be vitally important to Arc, so we hope that you will not only continue to read our books, but lend them to your friends – and perhaps spread the word even further by reviewing them on the Arc and other website(s). Thank you so much for your support.