The 2011 Count
VIDA Presents The 2011 Count
In 2010 VIDA took on the project: of counting the rates of publication between women and men in many of our writing world’s most prestigious literary outlets. VIDA’s Count produced hundreds of responses. It seems everyone wanted to share in a conversation that appears many believe is necessary and long overdue.
So this year we’ve done it again. We hope VIDA’s Count will go on annually until that glorious time when it is no longer needed. To see the numbers up close and personal, click here. Download The 2011 Count press release here.
The Count
Why the Submissions Numbers Don’t Count
By Danielle Pafunda
Whenever VIDA publishes a Count, or shares its pie charts, readers observe that men and women submit to magazines, journals, and publishing houses at different rates, and that this might inform the gender ratios we observe. While it makes sense to wonder about what’s going on behind the scenes, I’d like to offer a few notes on why submissions numbers don’t actually hold the answers we’re … [Read More...]
State of the Art
Women of Being: An Anti-List of Under-Acknowledged Authors
By VIDA
In a culture saturated with top-ten lists of everything from books to bikes to baby names — what can we do to right the gender imbalance in publishing besides tabulate our absences? VIDA decided to start by excavating the spaces behind the lists. We asked our board members and a few other contemporary authors to share sentences about a literary woman we feel is too little mentioned. Our short … [Read More...]
Deal With It
Women and Children First! Why anyone who cares about gender and literature should pick up a children’s book. Now.
By Kekla Magoon
The first time I heard that Judy Blume is one of the most censored/challenged American authors of all time, I laughed. I was about fifteen. “Judy Blume? As in, the Judy Blume?” I didn’t believe it. You couldn’t walk through my middle school library without tripping over a copy of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. “Yes,” my mother said. “She’s controversial because, among other … [Read More...]
VIDA
Biting The Hand: VIDA Women Discuss Their Selection For The Best American Series
By Amy King
Amy King: We’ve arrived with the numbers for the Best American series, interested to see how women fare on the “Best American” front. Parity has eluded us again. Moreover, your work has appeared, at some point, in these anthologies, and now you’re playing for Team VIDA! While our goals are to point out imbalances, query and explore the implied bias, I’m wondering if you all feel a … [Read More...]
For the Record
Human Lives: A conversation between Jane Hirshfield and Leslie McGrath
By Leslie McGrath
Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven collections of poetry, as well as a now-classic book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. She also edited and co-translated The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Komachi & Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan; Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women; The Heart of Haiku; and Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems. Her … [Read More...]