The Lambda Literary Foundation held its 17th annual Literary Awards on June 2 at the CUNY Graduate Center, as part of the BookExpo Convention.
The winners were:
Debut Gay Men’s Fiction (including a $1,000 prize)—Blair Mastbaum for “Clay’s Way” (Alyson).
Debut Lesbian Fiction (including a $1,000 prize)—Judith Frank for “Crybaby Butch” (Firebrand).
Gay Men’s Fiction—Colm Tóibín for “The Master” (Scribner’s).
Lesbian Fiction—Stacey D’Erasmo for “A Seahorse Year” (Houghton Mifflin).
Lesbian Poetry—Beverly Burch for “Sweet to Burn” (Gival Press).
Gay Men’s Poetry—Luis Cernuda for “Written in Water” (City Lights Publishers).
Lesbian Mystery—Katherine V. Forrest for “Hancock Park” (Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin Group USA).
Gay Men’s Mystery—Anthony Bidulka for “Flight of Aquavit” (Insomniac Press).
Fiction Anthology—Donald Weise, editor, for “Fresh Men: New Voices in Gay Fiction,” selected by Edmund White (Carroll & Graff).
Nonfiction Anthology—Greg Wharton and Ian Philips. editors, for “I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage” (Suspect Thoughts Press).
Memoir—Alison Smith for “Name All the Animals” (Scribner’s).
Biography—Alexis De Veaux for “Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde” (W.W. Norton).
Children’s/Young Adult—Alex Sanchez for “So Hard to Say” (Simon & Schuster).
Humor—David Sedaris for “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denin” (Little, Brown).
Erotica—Richard Labonte, editor, for “Best Gay Erotica 2005” (Cleis Press).
Romance—Steven Kluger for “Almost Like Being in Love” (HarperCollins).
Scifi/Fantasy/Horror—Jim Grimsley for “The Ordinary” (Tor Books).
Spirituality—Will Roscoe for “Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love” (Suspect Thoughts Press).
Drama / Theater—Doug Wright for “I am My Own Wife” (Straus & Giroux).
Visual Arts/Photography—Evan Bachner for “At Ease: Navy Men of World War II” (Harry Abrams).
LGBT Studies—Elisabeth Kirtsoglou for “For the Love of Women: Gender, Identity and Same-Sex Relations in a Greek Provincial Town”(Routledge).
Transgender—Mariette Pathy Allen for “The Gender Frontier”(Kehrer Verlag).
In addition to these awards, special recognition went to Eve Ensler, the author of “The Vagina Monologues,” with a Bridge Builder Award, and to Blanche Weisen Cooke, the New York Times best-selling author of a two-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, and science fiction/fantasy novelist Samuel Delaney, with Pioneer Awards. Bella Books won recognition in the small press distinction category.
Comedian and Broadway actress Lea Delaria was the evening’s emcee. Among the award presenters were Broadway writer and performer Charles Busch, who presented the Memoir Award, Style TV drag talk show host Brini Maxwell presenting the Humor Award, and porn star-turned-poet Aiden Shaw presenting the Erotica Award.
Jack Van Antwerp
Acclaimed science fiction/fantasy writer Samuel Delaney (l.), pictured here with historian and author Martin Duberman, was recognized with a Pioneer Award.
Matt Chapin
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