For Immediate Release

For more information, please contact:

Amy King, VIDA Executive Board

[log in to unmask]


VIDA ANNOUNCES 2017 VIDA COUNT
GRANTA, POETRY, and TIN HOUSE continue to publish a range of voices


THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS published a shockingly low 23.3% women


THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT published the greatest number of nonbinary writers


THE BELIEVER the worst of the smaller magazines with only 33% women, and zero books by women reviewed; A PUBLIC SPACE the most inclusive of women with 57.4% 


June 18, 2018—VIDA: Women in Literary Arts is pleased to announce our 2017 VIDA Count! Last year’s numbers showed some exciting improvement, as well as some stubborn and disappointing imbalances. 


Granta, Poetry, and Tin House continue to succeed at gender parity, while the New York Review of Books posted its worst numbers ever, at 23.3% women, amid an editorial shift after the death of their longtime editor Robert Silvers to the perhaps unsurprising choice of another established white man, Ian Buruma. 


In a world dominated by imbalance, hardship, and uncertainty, the voices we choose to uphold must reflect the voices of our populations. As board members Sarah Clark and Amy King write in their 2017 VIDA Count introduction, correcting the imbalance “isn’t book burning. It is ensuring the creation of countless books by women and nonbinary people, books that would never stand a chance in climates of violence that deny access, audience, and the freedom and safety to create in the ways white cis men have enjoyed since the beginnings of American letters.”


While the Paris Review showed the most improvement, at 35% women, the number remains low, and it was a year also marked by the ousting of their editor-in-chief, Lorin Stein, for sexual misconduct. Boston Review, whose fiction editor has recently come under fire for misconduct as well, published only 37.8% women this year. With the launch of VIDA’s #saferLIT program this past winter, and in a #MeToo world, we find it important to examine the impact that the absence of women’s and other marginalized voices can have on the influence and safety of at-risk bodies in the world.


Our Intersectional Survey did bring some positive news. Poetry published the largest number of women and nonbinary writers of color in 2017, representing 37% of Poetry’s respondents. All but one of the magazines in our VIDA Count included at least one woman or nonbinary writer who self-identifies as disabled. And this year, 10 out of 15 of the main VIDA Count publications included at least one piece by nonbinary individuals; this uptick hopefully indicates a positive upward trend of the inclusion of nonbinary people in mainstream publishing.


The 2017 VIDA Count includes survey categories for gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, disability and impairment, age, and education. The entirety of the results can be seen here: http://www.vidaweb.org/the-2017-vida-count/



And an overview chart: http://www.vidaweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/01-VIDA-Overview-2017.jpg









___

http://www.vidaweb.org/