A leaner National Steinbeck Center postpones this year's annual Steinbeck Festival.

They haven't released an official announcement yet, but National Steinbeck Center co-directors Elizabeth Welden-Smith and Lori Wood, who have taken the reigns of the institution since former Executive Director Colleen Bailey left in January to run the Monterey Jazz Festival, confirm that they will not put on the 35th annual Steinbeck Festival this year.

They say they've decided to go with a plan they've been talking about for years: to make their signature event a biennial festival.

"We did so much last year for the 75th anniversary of the Grapes of Wrath, and such a high level national program," Welden-Smith says. "It takes a long time to plan that kind of outreach, several months in advance to let us incubate ideas, get other people involved, present new work. We're not going to do a festival that's less than that again."

She says they're in talks about partnering with a number of agencies like the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, NPR, the Autrey National Center in Los Angeles, the Ernest Hemingway House, The American Writers Museum taking shape in Chicago, and that city's Steppenwolf Theatre.

"The Steinbeck Festival is the [Steinbeck Center's] biggest program and this shouldn't be interpreted as we're lessening our efforts," Wood says. "We're seeing how we can do a festival really well—the staff that takes is extensive."

And they're running on a very lean staff. In recent months they've subsisted without key people including a curator and assistant curator (their two big Ag gallery spaces are out of commission for now) and marketing people. In addition to co-directing, Welden-Smith, who's been with the organization since 2011, is also handling marketing.

The theme for what would have been the 35th iteration would have been either the 75th anniversary of Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts' journey to the Sea of Cortez, or something tied to a coming movie based on Steinbeck's East of Eden starring Jennifer Lawrence. Both say that the loss of the festival this year is not a result of the deal for CSU Monterey Bay to buy the building being stalled by debt forgiveness issues.

"I think [the deal] is going to happen imminently," Wood says.

They say that other events are still on—a Steinbeck birthday celebration on Feb. 28, the Day of Writing workshop for county kids March 2, a Tandy Beal performances March 4 and 6. But Wood admits that the Steinbeck Festival is a big one.

"[It] has a fan base that's been coming for years," Wood says. "We don't want to let them down by doing a smaller festival. We considered it. That's not the direction we're going."

They say that this biennial idea is their preferred method, but as recently as December 2014, Steinbeck staff were still claiming that the Steinbeck Festival was going to happen in May 2015. They also say that former executive director Colleen Bailey leaving for the Jazz Festival was simply a matter of timing, that her first love had been performing arts, that she was voted onto the Steinbeck Center board, and that she didn't want to leave the place in such a precarious position.

"I feel really good about what's happening here," Wood says. "I've been associated with the Steinbeck Center for eight years. There's too much overhead for an arts organization in this community. It's rare for a nonprofit that they have a capitalization structure problem and then get so close to solving it. Yes, we have a very small staff right now. The mood internally is really upbeat here."

But asked what the theme for the 2016 Steinbeck Festival will be and they are cryptic.

"I don't want to say," Wood says. "I'm not sure we're not going to change it. It's all under wraps at this point. We have exciting access to something we haven't had access to before."