Louise Erdrich wins the Gish Prize, a top arts honor

NEW YORK (AP) — Louise Erdrich's latest honor inspired in her a new appreciation of how the supposedly solitary art of writing depends on the help of others.

Erdrich is this year's recipient of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. It's named for the late sisters — silent film actors Dorothy and Lillian Gish — whose will called for the establishment of an award for "an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.”

Since the prize began, in 1994, winners have included Bob Dylan,Frank Gehry, Merce Cunningham and Ava DuVernay.

Erdrich, 72, is already a Pulitzer winner for her 2020 novel “The Night Watchman” and a National Book Award winner for her 2012 novel “The Round House.” In 2015, she received the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. During a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press, Erdrich said that after learning of the Gish award, she researched the lives of the two actors and was impressed by how they made everyone involved in a given film feel appreciated.

“They would talk to the stage hands and anyone else who was around, the people who helped put a production together. That's something very close to my heart,” said Erdrich, citing her experience as a bookstore owner. “I love being part of the entire structure of bringing books to people.”

Like such peers as Ann Patchett and Lauren Groff, Erdrich has firsthand knowledge in both the creation and selling of books. In 2001, she helped found Birchbark Books, an independent store based in Minneapolis that champions “the power of good writing, the beauty of handmade art, the strength of Native culture, and the importance of small and intimate bookstores.” (Erdrich, whose books often center on Native lives, is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.)

In a statement released Friday, Gish selection committee member Sara Reisman praised Erdrich's writing for its “indelible effect on my understanding of Indigenous life.”

“Adjacent to her writing practice is Birchbark Books," Reisman added, “a community-based teaching bookstore with international presence that amplifies the work of Native and non-Native writers (and) celebrates that which makes each of us different.”

FILE - Author Louise Erdrich appears at her store BirchBark Books in Minneapolis, on May 16, 2008. (AP Photo/Dawn Villella, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is canceling nearly $1 billion in spending approved by Congress, the White House announced on Friday, using a rare and contested power to axe funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives.

Trump's Office of Management and Budget described the funding cut as focused on “the most harmful government spending.”

Trump’s move was condemned by Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican in a tough re-election campaign and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Collins said in a statement that the action came without warning or consultation. She also said she would work to address with colleagues “these illegal actions.”

“Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding."

Typically, Congress can review the president’s proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year. The Government Accountability Office says the maneuver, known as a “pocket rescission,” is illegal.

Collins called it the latest attempt by OMB to “undermine Congress’s Constitutional power of the purse.”

President Donald Trump speaks during an arrival ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)