Lambda Literary Awards Finalists Unveiled

By Maryann Yin 

The Lambda Literary Foundation revealed the 114 finalists for the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards. These awards honor the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) authors from 2010.

The nominees in the 24 categories were picked by 90 volunteer booksellers, book reviewers, librarians, authors, and previous winners. More than 230 publishers submitted a record-breaking pool of 520-plus titles this year. We’ve listed a few of this year’s nominees below.

Lambda Awards administrator Richard Labonté had this statement: “Some of the increase in nominations stems from the growth in recent years of self-published books, reflecting an expanding reliance on ever-more-accessible publish-on-demand technology by talented LGBT authors with worthwhile stories to tell–a do-it-yourself approach that hearkens back to the late 1970s and 1980s, when lesbians and gay men established their own presses and launched the queer book boom.”

LGBT ANTHOLOGIES
Best Lesbian Romance edited by Radclyffe
Gay Shame edited by David Halperin
Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation edited by Kate Bornstein & S. Bear Bergman
Kicked Out edited by Sassafras Lowrey
War Diaries edited by Tisa Bryant & Ernest Hardy

LGBT CHILDREN’S/YOUNG ADULT
Christian, the Hugging Lion by Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell, illustrated by Amy June Bates
God Loves Hair by Vivek Shraya, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld
Jumpstart the World by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Love Drugged by James Klise
Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

BISEXUAL FICTION
Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgann Packard
If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous
Krakow Melt by Daniel Allen Cox
The Lunatic, the Lover and the Poet by Myrlin Hermes
Pride/Prejudice by Ann Herendeen

TRANSGENDER NONFICTION
Assume Nothing by Rebecca Swan
Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community by Noach Dzmura
The Color of Sunlight by Michelle Alexander
Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation edited by Kate Bornstein & S. Bear Bergman
Just One of the Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Inequality by Kristin Schilt

LESBIAN DEBUT FICTION
Alcestis by Katharine Beutner
Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgann Packard
One More Stop by Lois Walden
The More I Owe You by Michael Sledge
Sub Rosa by Amber Dawn

GAY MEMOIR
Beyond Normal: The Birth of Gay Pride by Gale Chester Whittington
Grant Wood: A Life by R. Tripp Evans
Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade by Justin Spring
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings
She Ain’t Heavy, She’s My Mother by Bryan Batt