Pitch & Putt: The VIDA Survey of Gender Parity in Literary Periodicals

In 2009 a seemingly unassuming project launched that has had an inordinate impact on the profile of women writers in literary publishing. The VIDA survey was established in New York by the poet Amy King and a number of colleagues with the object of examining the figures for women's inclusion in prominent literary periodicals. The group of writers painstakingly gathered statistics on the gender of individuals featured in nearly forty literary journals and well-respected periodicals. The result was a breakdown of gender divides across genres, reviewers, books reviewed, and journalistic bylines. What ensued was a vivid assessment of the publishing world that served as a klaxon-call signaling the inequity existing for women writers in major literary publications and reviews. Since then the annual VIDA count has become an increasingly anticipated event in the United States. The focus of inquiry has expanded to include the United Kingdom, home of highly regarded journals including the London Review of Books (LRB) and the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) that have also been revealed by VIDA to have surprisingly poor figures for gender parity (King, "Best of 2009"). In following the progression of annual figures displayed on its website, it seems undeniable that the VIDA count has effected change in many of the publications to come under scrutiny. On a wider scale VIDA has been influential in raising awareness among writers, readers, and, crucially, editors, thus mobilizing a concerted demand for inclusion of women's writing across the United States and United Kingdom.