Virginia Kidd

Virginia Kidd (Mildred Virginia Kidd, June 2, 1921 - January 11, 2003) was an influential literary agent in SF, representing Ursula K. Le Guin and many other significant SF writers. Kidd was also an editor, poet, and writer in her own right. She founded the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency, which continues to represent many writers. She was a Futurian and one of the founding members of the Vanguard Amateur Press Association.

She had been married to opera singer Jack Emden (1943-1947) and then fellow SF writer James Blish (1947-1963).

Blurbs

• "Virginia Kidd was the first female literary agent in the genre of speculative fiction, and over the next 3 decades represented some of the field's most important authors, including Ursula K. LeGuin, Anne McCaffrey, Gene Wolfe, R.A. Lafferty, Alan Dean Foster, and many others."

Authors represented

• Alan Dean Foster
• R. A. Lafferty
• Ursula K. Le Guin
• Anne McCaffrey
• Gene Wolfe

The Futurians: the Story of the Science Fiction "Family" of the 30'S That Produced Today's Top Sf Writers & Editors (1977) by Damon Knight.

Works

Edited anthologies

• Saving Worlds: A Collection of Original Science Fiction Stories (with Roger Elwood, 1973)
• The Wounded Planet (1974)
• The Best of Judith Merril (1976)
• Millennial Women (1978)
• Interfaces: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction (1980) (with Ursula K. Le Guin)
• Edges: Thirteen New Tales from the Borderlands of the Imagination (1980) (with Ursula K. Le Guin).

Edited works

• Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (1968)
• The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin (1982)

Written works

• "Argument" Weird Tales 55 (Fall 1998, p.51)
• "Kangaroo Court" (1966 short story; reprinted as "Flowering Season")
• "A King of King" (poem, 1995)
• "Ok, O Che? by K." (1995 short story)
• "Argument" (1998 poem)
• Kidd, Virginia, "Agent First, Anthologist Sometimes, Writer in the Cracks," in Women of Vision, edited by Denise DuPont. St Martin’s Press: 1988. (essay)

Further reading

• Virginia Kidd at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Ursula K. Le Guin, "About Virginia Kidd" (2003 in memoriam) ("I come back to what I wrote above, "She loved to take a risk." I was, to start with, and often since, one of her major risks. I never was a safe horse. But oh, what a joy it was, racing under her colors!")
• Soky Chhe, "Virginia Kidd", The Pennsylvania Center for the Book

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