The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" in English-language books published in the U.S. They are sponsored by the Rainbow Round Table (RRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) and have been part of the American Library Association awards program, now termed ALA Book, Print & Media Awards, since 1986 as the single Gay Book Award.
Laurence David Kramer was an American playwright, author, film producer, public health advocate, and gay rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London, where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for the film Women in Love (1969) and received an Academy Award nomination for his work.
Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ+ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ+ literature. The awards were instituted in 1989.
Rita Mae Brown is an American feminist writer, best known for her coming-of-age autobiographical novel, Rubyfruit Jungle. Brown was active in a number of civil rights campaigns and criticized the marginalization of lesbians within feminist groups. Brown received the Pioneer Award for lifetime achievement at the Lambda Literary Awards in 2015.
Dorothy Earlene Allison was an American writer whose writing focused on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism, and lesbianism. She was a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Karla Jay is a distinguished professor emerita at Pace University, where she taught English and directed the women's and gender studies program between 1974 and 2009. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published.
In the Life is an American television newsmagazine program focused on issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, broadcast on public television from 1992 to 2012, and produced by In The Life Media. It was created by the Emmy Award-winning producer John Scagliotti. Running for twenty years, it was the first and longest running national LGBT television program in history.
Allison Scagliotti is an American actress, musician and director. Her television roles include appearing in Drake & Josh, Warehouse 13, and Stitchers. She performs as a musician under the name La Femme Pendu.
Barbara Gittings was an American activist for LGBT equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) from 1958 to 1963, edited the national DOB magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people by the largest employer in the US at that time: the United States government. Her early experiences with trying to learn more about lesbianism fueled her lifetime work with libraries. In the 1970s, Gittings was most involved in the American Library Association, especially its gay caucus, the first such in a professional organization, in order to promote positive literature about homosexuality in libraries. She was a part of the movement to get the American Psychiatric Association to drop homosexuality as a mental illness in 1972. Her self-described life mission was to tear away the "shroud of invisibility" related to homosexuality, which had theretofore been associated with crime and mental illness.
Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics. A similar term is sapphic literature, encompassing works that feature love between women that are not necessarily lesbian.
Jewelle Lydia Gomez is an American author, poet, critic and playwright. She lived in New York City for 22 years, working in public television, theater, as well as philanthropy, before relocating to the West Coast. Her writing—fiction, poetry, essays and cultural criticism—has appeared in a wide variety of outlets, both feminist and mainstream. Her work centers on women's experiences, particularly those of LGBTQ women of color. She has been interviewed for several documentaries focused on LGBT rights and culture.
Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community is a 1984 American documentary film about the LGBT community prior to the 1969 Stonewall riots. It was narrated by author Rita Mae Brown, directed by Greta Schiller, co-directed by Robert Rosenberg, and co-produced by John Scagliotti and Rosenberg, and Schiller. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 2019, the film was restored and re-released by First Run Features in June 2019. Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Katherine Lahusen was an American photographer, writer and gay rights activist. She was the first openly lesbian American photojournalist. Under Lahusen's art direction, photographs of lesbians appeared on the cover of The Ladder for the first time. It was one of many projects she undertook with partner Barbara Gittings, who was then The Ladder's editor. As an activist, Lahusen was involved with the founding of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1970 and the removal of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). She contributed writing and photographs to a New York–based Gay Newsweekly and Come Out!, and co-authored two books: The Gay Crusaders in 1972 with Randy Wicker and Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era, collecting their photographs with Diana Davies in 2019.
John Scagliotti is an American film director and producer, and radio broadcaster. He has received honors for his work on documentaries about LGBT issues including Before Stonewall and After Stonewall.
Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS) is an American nonprofit organization established in 2004 for those with an interest in Sapphic literature. Since 2005, GCLS has at its annual conference presented Golden Crown Literary Awards (Goldies) to authors and editors in various categories of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and anthologies/collections, as well as for cover design and audiobook narration.
Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World is a 2003 documentary film directed by American filmmaker John Scagliotti about the issues experienced by gay, lesbian and transgender people in developing countries. It was the first documentary film to explore these issues in non-Western countries. It is narrated by actress and comedian Janeane Garofalo. It was produced by Janet Baus and Dan Hunt, both of whom had worked with Scagliotti on his previous film, After Stonewall. The film focuses in particular on Cairo 52, a group of 52 Egyptian men who were arrested on board a floating gay nightclub in 2001. It features interviews with gay-rights activists from countries around the world including Honduras, Namibia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Janet Baus is an American documentary film and television director, producer and editor. In 1993, she co-directed Lesbian Avengers Eat Fire Too with Su Friedrich, about activist group the Lesbian Avengers. In 2003, she produced John Scagliotti's film Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World about gay and lesbian people in non-Western countries. She had worked with Scagliotti before, having a co-producer credit on his 1999 film After Stonewall. Her 2006 film Cruel and Unusual, co-directed with Dan Hunt and Reid Williams, was a documentary about pre-operative male-female transsexual women in men's prisons. It won the Michael J. Berg Documentary Award at the 2006 Frameline Film Festival and the Freedom Award at L.A. Outfest. Baus has also won the Cine Golden Eagle, the Vito Russo Award, the Chicago International Television Award and the Gold Aurora Award.
Amy Scholder is an American literary editor and documentary filmmaker known for publishing works by marginalized and especially LGBTQ writers, artists, musicians, and activists.
Pride is an American documentary television miniseries revolving around LGBT rights in the United States decade-by-decade. It consists of 6 episodes and premiered on May 14, 2021, on FX.
