Deal With It
Dear Fury #6: “Too often writers can fall into a bad pattern of circle jerking and that’s really unproductive for everyone.”
Dear Fury, There's a woman in my writer's group who is constantly putting the rest of us down. She's the only one who's published and it's like she thinks she's better because of it. I mean, why join a writer's group if you're going to spend it disparaging the others? For example, she told me my writing style is somewhat old fashioned -- I use the word "nay" sometimes to mean "no" and … [Read More...]
State of the Art
Editor’s Corner #9: Kim Wyatt for Cherry Bomb Books
Welcome back to Editor's Corner for our 9th installment, in which we hear from Kim Wyatt, founder of Cherry Bomb Books. Editor's Corner is a VIDAWeb feature in which editors and publishers explore complex issues regarding sex, gender, race and sexuality as they relate to their projects. Kim Wyatt founded Cherry Bomb in 2012 as an imprint of Bona Fide Books, and in this edition of Editor's … [Read More...]
For the Record
Art + Access at AWP: We’re Nobody, Who Are You?: A Response to the Panel “Numbers Trouble: Editors and Writers Speak to VIDA’s Count”
Claire Lawrence: I was the middle aged woman in the third row from the back, worried that her hair and glasses weren’t cool enough for the writer crowd anymore, worried that she’d never have a book like all the people she went to school with (two top-ranked writing programs), worried about the rapid passage of time marked so clearly in everyone’s faces each time she goes to AWP. I teach a … [Read More...]
The Count
VIDA COUNT 2012: MIC CHECK, REDUX
In a year kicked off by the Republican party fighting the Violence Against Women Act and a nationally-broadcasted song reducing Oscar-noteworthy actresses to "boob shots," VIDA takes our annual look back to see if this regressive tenor is reflected in the treatment of women in literature in 2012. We also eyeball how the 2012 Count stacks up beside numbers from the years preceding. As always, the … [Read More...]
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.