The following is a press release from VIDA that I know will interest many of this blog’s readers.

May 20, 2015 — With the release last month of its fifth annual VIDA Count & second annual Larger Literary Landscape VIDA Count, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts also released its first attempt to count race—with incredible social media reception and international response:

“VIDA’s new Women of Color Count is a big step toward more public visibility of the diversity problem in literary media, and an encouraging sign of how hard the volunteer-staffed organization works to continually move the conversation forward.”—Huffington Post, April 7, 2015

“The 2014 VIDA Count tells a vital story about the lack of parity in the literary arts. In addition to surfacing the barriers women face in the literary space, the research shows that the obstacles are compounded for women of color.” — Women, Action & the Media.

Inspired by tremendous support from organizations like WAM: Women, Action & the Media! and responses from Huffington Post, The Guardian, and Newsweek, VIDA will continue to develop and broaden the scope of the annual VIDA Count by also counting LGBTQI writers and writers with disabilities for 2015. This concerted effort will further deepen and complicate the conversation about imbalances from an intersectional position. This development will also enable the articulation of issues converging at the points of gender, race, sexual orientation and disability.

Throughout the rest of the year, VIDA will be contacting all women published in 2015 to complete a short anonymous online survey that will permit writers to self identify these factors for themselves.

In the spirit of VIDA’s all-volunteer efforts, VIDA will enlist public support to encourage writers to participate in a self-identifying survey. Stay tuned for #HelpVIDACount on VIDA’s Facebook and Twitter pages!

This growth coincides with the departure of Jen Fitzgerald from the Count Department. It is with immense gratitude that VIDA applauds her generous management of four VIDA Counts as completed by her and the many incredible VIDA volunteer counters. Questions regarding details about the VIDA Count may be directed to Cate Marvin at cmarvin@vidaweb.org.