NEA Big Read Opens Apps, Announces Books and Theme

Applications are now open for NEA Big Read grants to support community-wide reading programs between September 2025 and June 2026 under the new theme, “Our Nature: How Our Physical Environment Can Lead Us to Seek Hope, Courage, and Connection.” An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with Arts Midwest, the NEA Big Read supports a range of events and activities designed around a single NEA Big Read book. Matching grants range from $5,000 to $20,000 each.

The Intent to Apply deadline is January 23, 2025. Visit Arts Midwest’s website for complete grant guidelines and to apply.

The 2025-2026 NEA Big Read books available for selection—14 new books and eight returning—are as follows:

• Bewilderment (novel) by Richard Powers
• Bite by Bite (memoir) by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
• Blackfish City (novel) by Sam J. Miller
• Fuzz (nonfiction) by Mary Roach
• I Cheerfully Refuse (novel) by Leif Enger
• In the Distance (novel) by Hernan Diaz
• In the Field Between Us (poetry) by Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison
• Lone Women (novel) by Victor LaValle
• The New Wilderness (novel) by Diane Cook
• Nobody Gets Out Alive (short stories) by Leigh Newman
• North Woods (novel) by Daniel Mason
• The Quickening (nonfiction) by Elizabeth Rush
• The Seed Keeper (novel) by Diane Wilson
• You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World (poetry anthology) edited by Ada Limon

Returning books:

• An American Sunrise (poetry) by Joy Harjo
• The Bear (novel) by Andrew Krivak
• Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (poetry) by Ross Gay
• The Grapes of Wrath (novel) by John Steinbeck
• The House on Mango Street (novel) by Sandra Cisneros
• Lab Girl (memoir) by Hope Jahren
• Their Eyes Were Watching God (novel) by Zora Neale Hurston
• When the Emperor Was Divine (novel) by Julie Otsuka