Ira Silverberg is the Literature Director at the National Endowment for the Arts. Before joining NEA in 2011 he worked in publishing in a variety of capacities, including Editor in Chief of Grove Press, Publisher of Serpent’s Tail, and as an agent and foreign rights director first at Donadio and Olson, then at Sterling Lord Literistic. He was a long-time board member of CLMP, PEN American Center, BOMB Magazine, and the MFA Writing Program of the New School before he joined the NEA.