Virginia Kidd

Virginia Kidd (June 2, 1921-January 11, 2003) was an American literary agent, writer and editor, particularly influential in science fiction and related fields. She represented some of science fiction's most important authors, including Ursula K. LeGuin, R.A. Lafferty, Anne McCaffrey, and Gene Wolfe.

Early life and career

Kidd was born Mildred Virginia Kidd [ [http://www.blish.org/gens/1380I_sa.html Blish genealogical database] ] in the Germantown district of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest daughter of Charles Kidd, a printer, and Zetta Daisy Whorley (both originally Southerners). She had polio at the age of 2, and was paralyzed for a year from the chest down. Kidd discovered science fiction at the age of nine, and became an active science fiction fan: a Futurian and one of the founding members of the Vanguard Amateur Press Association. She married opera singer Jack Emden in 1943 (the marriage lasted until 1947), and then fellow writer James Blish; the latter marriage lasted until 1963. Kidd successfully worked as a free-lance writer, ghost writer, and proofreader (she was fluent in Latin, French, German, Italian and Spanish). She was an active poet, and published "Kinesis", a little magazine devoted to poetry. Her short stories included "Kangaroo Court," published in 1966 in Damon Knight’s anthology "Orbit 1", and later reprinted as "Flowering Season," which was considered by some her best fiction work. She edited or co-edited several science fiction 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) and "Edges: Thirteen New Tales from the Borderlands of the Imagination" (1980) (the latter two with client and friend Ursula K. Le Guin).

Virginia Kidd Literary Agency

In 1965, she founded her Virginia Kidd Literary Agency, headquartered at her farm, Arrowhead, in Milford, Pennsylvania, and quickly attracted clients from the science fiction community. Her agency was one of the most influential in the field. She withdrew from active management of the agency in the mid-1990s due to complications of diabetes [ [http://www.davidghartwell.com/2003/03/those_now_gone_.html] Hartwell, David G., "Those Now Gone: NYRSF Editorial 175," "New York Review of Science Fiction" 175 (March 2003)] but the firm survives her death. She continued to write "in the cracks" (as she put it) throughout her life, publishing her last short story, "Ok, O Che? by K.", in 1995, and her last poem, "Argument," in 1998.

Notes

Further reading

*Kidd, Virginia, "Agent First, Anthologist Sometimes, Writer in the Cracks," in "Women of Vision", edited by Denise DuPont. St Martin’s Press: 1988.
*"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.

External links

* [http://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/LitMap/bios/Kidd__Virginia.html Biography of Kidd from the Pennsylvania Center for the Book]
* [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Virginia_Kidd Kidd's author listing on the ISFDB]
* [http://www.sfwa.org/News/kidd.htm Kidd's obituary from the SFWA website]
* [http://www.vk-agency.com/ Virginia Kidd Literary Agency]
* [http://www.ursulakleguin.com/VirginiaKidd.html "About Virginia Kidd" by Ursula K. LeGuin]
* [http://www.blish.org/gens/1380I_sa.html Genealogical listing of Kidd in Blish genealogical database]