Lambda Literary Award


Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by the U.S.-based Lambda Literary Foundation to published works which celebrate or explore LGBT themes. Categories include Humor, Romance and Biography. To qualify, a book must have been published in the United States in the year current to the award. The Lambda Literary Foundation states that its mission is "to celebrate LGBT literature and provide resources for writers, readers, booksellers, publishers, and librarians – the whole literary community." The awards were instituted in 1988.
The program has grown from 14 awards in early years to 22 awards today. Early categories such as HIV/AIDS literature were dropped as the prominence of the AIDS crisis within the gay community waned, and categories for bisexual and transgender literature were added as the community became more inclusive. In both the bisexual and transgender categories, one or two awards may be presented annually; if the number of submissions in a given year warrants, then separate awards for fiction and non-fiction are presented, while a smaller number of submissions results in a single award.
In addition to the primary literary awards, the Lambda Literary Foundation also presents a number of special awards. The Pioneer Award is presented as a lifetime achievement award to a distinguished figure in the history of LGBT literature; the Bridge Builder Award is presented to a person, regardless of sexuality, who has been a prominent ally and advocate of the LGBT community; and the Trustee Award is presented to a writer who has made a considerable contribution to a wider awareness and understanding of the lives of LGBT people.
Beginning in 2011, the Lambda Literary Awards also took over the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize, formerly presented by the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival. The award, endowed by academic and writer James Duggins, is presented annually to two LGBT writers, one male and one female, to honor their bodies of work. In 2013, the foundation instituted the Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award to honor young LGBT writers who have published at least one book; in 2016, the award was renamed to the Judith Markowitz Award, endowed by writer and philanthropist Judith Markowitz, while the Betty Berzon Award was taken over, and continues to be presented, by Publishing Triangle.

Award categories

Current

Tallies

has won five awards in the Lesbian Mystery category, the most by any single author, and is one of only three writers to have won the award more than once. Similarly, Michael Nava has won five awards in the Gay Mystery category, the most by any single author, and is one of only four writers to have won the award more than once. Marshall Thornton is the only author in the gay mystery category to have won twice for two different series.
Alison Bechdel has won four awards in the Humor category, the most by any single author, and is one of five writers to have won the award more than once. The Humor category has been discontinued.
Nicola Griffith and Melissa Scott have each won four awards in the Scifi/Fantasy/Horror category, and are two of six writers to have won the SFFH award more than once.
Sarah Waters has won three awards in the Lesbian Fiction category, for Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith, and The Night Watch in, and is one of only three writers to have won the Lesbian Fiction award more than once.
Mark Doty and Adrienne Rich have each won three awards in the Poetry category, and are two of seven poets to have won the award more than once
Richard Labonté, Radclyffe, and Tristan Taormino have each won two awards in the Erotica category, each winning once before the category was split into Gay and Lesbian subdivisions, and each winning their second after the category was split.
Karin Kallmaker and Michael Thomas Ford have each won two awards in the Romance category, each winning one before the category was split into Gay and Lesbian subdivisions – Kallmaker with Maybe Next Time and Ford with Last Summer, but in 2004 – and each winning their second after the category was split – Ford with Changing Tides in 2008 and Kallmaer with The Kiss That Counted in 2009.
Colm Tóibín is the only writer to have won two awards in the Gay Fiction category for The Master in 2004 and for The Empty Family in 2011.
Paul Monette is the only writer to have won two awards in the Gay Non-Fiction category, for Borrowed Time in 1989 and for Becoming a Man in 1993.
Lillian Faderman is the only writer to have won awards in seven different categories, having received:
Several writers have won awards in more than one category in the same year for the same work :
Several writers have won awards in more than one category in the same year for different works:
  • Jacqueline Woodson received the awards for Children/Young Adult and Lesbian Fiction in 1996.
  • Radclyffe received the awards for Erotica and Romance in 2006.
  • Nicola Griffith received the awards for Lesbian Mystery and Scifi/Fantasy/Horror in 1999.
  • Karin Kallmaker received the awards for Erotica and Lesbian Romance in 2009.
  • Benjamin Alire Sáenz received the awards for Gay Fiction and LGBT Children's/Young Adult in 2013.
Several other writers have won awards in more than one category in different years and for different works:
  • Alison Bechdel won the Lesbian Biography/Autobiography award for The Indelible Alison Bechdel in 1999, the Lesbian Memoir/Biography award for Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic in 2007, and the Trustee Award in 2014 in addition to her four Humor awards.
  • Joan Nestle won the Lesbian Studies award for A Fragile Union in 1999 in addition to her four Anthology awards.
  • Nicola Griffith won the Lesbian Memoir/Biography award for And Now We Are Going to Have a Party in 2008 and the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize in 2014 in addition to her four Scifi/Fantasy/Horror awards.
  • Tristan Taormino won the Transgender Fiction award for Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica in 2012.
  • Alan Hollinghurst won the Gay Debut Fiction award for The Swimming Pool Library in 1989 and the Gay Fiction award for The Folding Star in 1995.
  • Joseph Hansen won the Gay Mystery award for A Country of Old Men in 1991 and the Gay Fiction award for Living Upstairs in 1993.
  • Jeanette Winterson won the Lesbian Fiction award for Written on the Body in 1994 and the Lesbian Memoir/Biography award for Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? in 2013.
  • Judy Grahn won the Lesbian Non-Fiction award for Really Reading Gertrude Stein in 1990 and the Poetry award for love belongs to those who do the feeling in 2009.
  • Rafael Campo won the Gay Poetry award for What the Body Told in 1997 and the Gay Biography/Autobiography award for The Poetry of Healing in 1998.
  • Devon Carbado and Donald Weise won the Fiction Anthology award for Black Like Us in 2003 and the LGBT Studies award for Time on Two Crosses in 2004. Weise also won the Fiction Anthology award again in 2005.
  • Alexis De Veaux won the Biography award for Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde in 2005 and the Lesbian Fiction award for Yabo in 2015.
  • Vestal McIntyre won the Gay Debut Fiction award for You Are Not Alone in 2006 and the Gay Fiction award for Lake Overturn in 2010.
  • Mykola Dementiuk won the Bisexual Fiction award for Holy Communion in 2010 and the Gay Erotica award for The Facialist in 2013.
  • Dwight McBride won the Gay Fiction Anthology award for Black Like Us in 2003 and the LGBT Studies award for Delectable Negro in 2015
  • Jeff Mann won the Gay Erotica award in 2007 for A History of Barbed Wire and the Gay Romance award in 2015 for Salvation
Several authors have won awards in three different categories:
Numerous Lambda Award-winning works have been adapted for film and television:

Awards by year

The Lambda Literary Awards are presented each year to honor works of literature published in the previous year; accordingly, the first awards ceremony may be described in different sources as either the 1989 awards or the 1988 awards.
CeremonyYear of presentationYear of publication
1st Lambda Literary Awards19891988
2nd Lambda Literary Awards19901989
3rd Lambda Literary Awards19911990
4th Lambda Literary Awards19921991
5th Lambda Literary Awards19931992
6th Lambda Literary Awards19941993
7th Lambda Literary Awards19951994
8th Lambda Literary Awards19961995
9th Lambda Literary Awards19971996
10th Lambda Literary Awards19981997
11th Lambda Literary Awards19991998
12th Lambda Literary Awards20001999
13th Lambda Literary Awards20012000
14th Lambda Literary Awards20022001
15th Lambda Literary Awards20032002
16th Lambda Literary Awards20042003
17th Lambda Literary Awards20052004
18th Lambda Literary Awards20062005
19th Lambda Literary Awards20072006
20th Lambda Literary Awards20082007
21st Lambda Literary Awards20092008
22nd Lambda Literary Awards20102009
23rd Lambda Literary Awards20112010
24th Lambda Literary Awards20122011
25th Lambda Literary Awards20132012
26th Lambda Literary Awards20142013
27th Lambda Literary Awards20152014
28th Lambda Literary Awards20162015
29th Lambda Literary Awards20172016
30th Lambda Literary Awards20182017
31st Lambda Literary Awards20192018
32nd Lambda Literary Awards20202019

Controversies

Bisexual Community/Bi Any Other Name

In 1992, despite requests from the bisexual community for a more appropriate and inclusive category, the groundbreaking bisexual anthology by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu was forced to compete in the category "Lesbian Anthology". Additionally, in 2005, Directed by Desire: Collected Poems, a posthumous collection of the bisexual Jamaican American writer June Jordan's work, had to compete in the category "Lesbian Poetry".
Led by BiNet USA, and assisted by other bisexual organizations including the American Institute of Bisexuality, BiPOL, and Bialogue, the bisexual community launched a multi-year struggle that eventually culminated in 2006 with the addition of a Bisexual category.

Transgender Community/The Man Who Would Be Queen

In 2004, the book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism by the highly controversial researcher J. Michael Bailey was announced as a finalist in the Transgender category of the 2003 Awards.
Transgender people immediately protested the nomination and gathered thousands of petition signatures in opposition within a few days. After the petition, the Foundation's judges examined the book more closely, decided that they considered it transphobic and removed it from their list of finalists. Within a year the executive director who had initially approved of the book's inclusion resigned. Executive director Charles Flowers later stated that "the Bailey incident revealed flaws in our awards nomination process, which I have completely overhauled since becoming the foundation’s executive director in January 2006."