ICYMI: The 2015 VIDA Count is Here and with New Intersectional Stats

In addition to VIDA’s yearly Count surveying the “Main VIDA Count” and “Larger Literary Landscape” literary journals and magazines, March 30th we released our newly-expanded Intersectional Survey, (to see the survey questions, click here) which tallied self-reported demographics data of writers in the Main Count as according to gender, sexuality identity, race and ethnicity, and disability. I am proud to say that for the second year in a row, last year being the first Women of Color Count, many VIDAs, including my dedicated and steadfast Survey Count team, and I volunteered many tireless hours to this survey, its outreach, and final release. And while we are still refining and complicating the conversation, I have never been more honored to be a part of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.

In addition to contributing to an educational conversation around the VIDA Count numbers, we’ve created several informational “primers” relating to each of the Intersectional Survey categories. Follow these links to read the primers with tips on how to talk about the numbers and act as allies:

The VIDA Count: On Race, Ethnicity, and Writers of Color Primer Page 1, Page 2, Page 3

The VIDA Count: On Disability/Difference/Impairment Primer Page 1, Page 2

The VIDA Count: On Sexuality Primer Page 1, Page 2

The VIDA Count: On Transgender Writers Primer Page 1, Page 2, Page 3

For a full review of the 2015 Count read Amy King’s “A Year of Intersectional Thinking” and the highlights and observations.

“*A word about methodology; helpful reminders for interpreting survey data*

Last year we reported on the inaugural 2014 Women of Color VIDA Count. Our method relied upon survey responses from the women writers whose bylines we counted in the fifteen publications that comprised the 2014 Main Count. To contact these women writers, our interns reached out to journal editors, searched author websites, and used social media, listservs, and other networks.

This year, we expanded our method of the 2014 Women of Color VIDA Count to also tally self-reported demographic data on racial and ethnic identity, sexual identity, gender identity and disabilities or impairments. Response rates varied by publication. Of the fifteen publications, six had survey response rates between 20 and 29 percent, six had survey response rates between 30 and 39 percent, one had a response rate of 43 percent, and two had survey response rates between 60 and 69 percent.”

 

Many thanks to everyone who made this year’s Count possible. A full list of their names are here.