The twenty-fourth annual Lambda Literary Awards for LGBT literature, also known as the Lammys, were announced last night at a ceremony in New York City, where authors rubbed elbows with luminaries in other arts, including actress Olympia Dukakis, Broadway performer Anthony Rapp, and drag legend Charles Busch.
Dukakis and National Organization for Women founder Eleanor Pam presented Lambda's Pioneer Awards for lifetime achievement to novelist Armistead Maupin, author of the San Francisco–based Tales of the City series, and feminist writer Kate Millett. Fiction writers Stacy D'Erasmo and Brian Leung won Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prizes.
The Lammy for gay poetry award went to A Fast Life, the collected poems of the late Tim Dlugos (1950–1990), edited by David Trinidad and published by Nightboat Books. The prize for lesbian poetry went to Leah Lakshmi Piepza-Samarasinha for Love Cake (TSAR Publications).
In lesbian fiction, Farzana Doctor won the Lammy for her novel Six Metres of Pavement (Dundurn Press). Colm Tóibín won in gay fiction for his story collection The Empty Family (Scribner). The award in bisexual fiction went to Barbara Browning for her novel, The Correspondence Artist (Two Dollar Radio). Debut fiction writers Rahul Mehta and Laurie Weeks were also honored, Mehta for his story collection, Quarantine (Harper Perennial), and Weeks for her novel, Zipper Mouth (Feminist Press).
In lesbian memoir, Jeanne Córdova won for When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love & Revolution (Spinsters Ink). Glen Retief won for gay memoir with The Jack Bank: A Memoir of a South African Childhood (St. Martin's Press). Justin Vivian Bond won the transgender nonfiction prize for Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels (Feminist Press).
For the list of winners in all categories, including erotica, young adult literature, and mystery, visit the Lambda Literary Foundation website.
In the video below, poetry awardee Piepza-Samarasinha performs a poem from her winning collection at a finalists reading held in April.