Alison Bechdel
and Kate Bornstein Honored
Special
Performance Given by Justin Vivian Bond
New York, NY -
The winners of the 26th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (the "Lammys")
were announced last night in a gala ceremony hosted by comedienne Kate Clinton
at The Great Hall at Cooper Union. It occurred on the heels of BookExpo
America, the book publishing industry's largest annual gathering of
booksellers, publishers, authors, and readers. The Lambda ceremony brought
together over 500 attendees, sponsors, and celebrities to celebrate excellence
in LGBT literature and 26 years of the groundbreaking literary awards. Obie
Award-winning performance artist and past Lambda Award winner Justin Vivian
Bond graced the ceremony with a special "half-time" performance. The
celebration continued at the VIP After-Party hosted by Scholastic at the Scholastic Greenhouse & Terrace with DJ Sean McMahill.
The ceremony
opened with a powerful montage of video clips from the
"What LGBTQI Book Changed Your Life" campaign, a project conducted in
conjunction with the Lammys to recognize LGBT literature of all types, from
poetry to erotica, that has influenced millions of readers. As
master of ceremonies for the third consecutive year, Clinton treated the
audience to her signature brand of topical, political comedy. She kept the
audience laughing with lines like "Happy Pride Month, the month formerly
known as June," and "I'm happy about the new pope. He's our first
Christian one."
Cartoonist Justin
Hall, award-winning creator of the series True Travel Tales in
presenting the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Literature to Alison
Bechdel said that her body of work from her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out
For to graphic memoirs Fun Home and Are You My Mother? solidify
her unique place in the comic book cannon. Bechdel gave a funny and moving
acceptance speech filled with memories from when she won her first Lammy in
1991.
Appropriately,
Bechdel presented the first award for the new category of best LGBT Graphic
Novel to Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir by Nicole J. Georges.
Kate Bornstein was
presented the Pioneer Award by her life partner, Barbara Carrellas who said
that when people are asked what Kate Bornstein means to them, "the
overwhelming answer is 'Kate Bornstein saved my life.'" Bornstein's call
to action to stop the history of shaming with regard to sex and gender brought
the audience to a standing ovation.
Michael Thomas Ford
and Radclyffe were awarded with the Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career
Novelist Prize and Imogen Binnie and Charles Rice-Gonzalez were presented with
the Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award.
Justin Vivian Bond
provided the "half-time" entertainment with three songs from ve's
recent show, "The Drift," all of which were inspired by classic
literature.
"Throughout the
beautiful ceremony, we were reminded of the meaningfulness of LGBT
literature and writers in our lives," said Tony Valenzuela, Lambda
Literary Foundation Executive Director. "Congratulations to all the
winners and honorees."
Once again, the
stage glittered with a stellar roster of presenters from the worlds of film,
television, theatre, politics, religion, sex, and, of course, literature. Just
some of the presenters who graced the stage were: Mike Albo, Henry Alford,
Hilton Als, Masha Gessen, A.M. Homes, Sassafras Lowrey, David Mixner, Pauline
Park, Seth Rudetsky, Ira Silverberg and Urvashi Vaid.
26th ANNUAL
LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNERS
GAY GENERAL
FICTION
• Mundo Cruel: Stories, Luis Negron; translated by Suzanne Jill
Levine, Seven Stories Press
LESBIAN GENERAL
FICTION
• Happiness, Like Water, Chinelo Okparanta, Mariner Books (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt)
LGBT DEBUT
• Descendants of Hagar, Nik Nicholson, AuthorHouse
BISEXUAL FICTION
• My Education, Susan Choi, Penguin Group/Viking
TRANSGENDER
FICTION
• Wanting in Arabic, Trish Salah, TSAR Publications
LGBT NONFICTION
• White Girls, Hilton Als, McSweeney's Publishing
TRANSGENDER
NONFICTION
• The End of San Francisco, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, City Lights
Publishers
BISEXUAL
NONFICTION
• The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film
and Television, Maria San
Filippo, Indiana University Press
GAY POETRY
• Unpeopled Eden, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Four Way Books
LESBIAN POETRY
• Rise in the Fall, Ana Bozicevic, Birds, LLC
LGBT GRAPHIC
NOVEL
• Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir, Nicole J. Georges, Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt
LGBT
CHILDREN'S/YA - TIE
• If You Could Be Mine, Sara Farizan, Algonquin Books
• Two Boys Kissing, David Levithan, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young
Readers
GAY
MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
• A Heaven of Words: Last Journals, by Glenway
Wescott, Ed. Jerry Rosco,
University of Wisconsin Press
LESBIAN
MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
• Body Geographic, Barrie Jean Borich, University of Nebraska
Press
GAY MYSTERY
• The Prisoner of the Riviera: A Francis Bacon Mystery, Janice Law, MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media
LESBIAN MYSTERY
• High Desert, Katherine V. Forrest, Spinsters Ink
GAY ROMANCE
• Into This River I Drown, TJ Klune, Dreamspinner Press
LESBIAN ROMANCE
• Clean Slate, Andrea Bramhall, Bold Strokes Books
GAY EROTICA
• The Padisah's Son and the Fox: an erotic
novella, Alex Jeffers,
Lethe Press
LESBIAN EROTICA
• Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex
Stories, Ed. Sacchi
Green, Cleis Press
LGBT ANTHOLOGY
• FICTION Queer Africa: New and Collected
Fiction, Karen Martin and
Makhosazana Xaba, MaThoko's Books
• NON-FICTION Who's Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers
Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners, Eds. Jim Elledge and David Groff, The
University of Wisconsin Press
LGBT DRAMA
• Tom at the Farm, Michel Marc Bouchard, Talonbooks
LGBT SF/F/HORROR
• Death by Silver, Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold, Lethe Press
LGBT STUDIES
• Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the
Politics of Violence, Christina
B. Hanhardt, Duke University Press
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