The Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize is an American literary award, presented to two writers, one male and one female, from the LGBT community to honour their body of work. First presented by the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in 2007, [1] the award became part of the Lambda Literary Awards program in 2011. Originally presented annually, it was presented only once every three years for part of the 2010s before becoming an annual award again in the 2020s.
It is the largest literary award in the United States which is available exclusively to LGBT writers; all other LGBT literary awards, including the rest of the Lambda Literary Awards program, are open to heterosexual writers who address LGBT themes in their work.
The award was endowed by writer and academic James Duggins.
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.
Dorothy Allison is an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focuses on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She is a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison has 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.
Larissa Lai is an American-born Canadian novelist and literary critic. She is a recipient of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and Lambda Literary Foundation's 2020 Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize.
Jim Grimsley is an American novelist and playwright.
Radclyffe is an American author of lesbian romance, paranormal romance, erotica, and mystery. She has authored multiple short stories, written fan fiction, and edited numerous anthologies. Radclyffe is a member of the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame and has won numerous literary awards, including the RWA/GDRWA Booksellers' Best award, the RWA/Orange County Book Buyers Best award, the RWA/New England Bean Pot award, the RWA/VCRW Laurel Wreath award, the RWA/FTHRW Lories award, the RWA/HODRW Aspen Gold award, the RWA Prism award, the Golden Crown Literary Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. She is a 2003/04 recipient of the Alice B Readers Award for her body of work as well as a member of the Golden Crown Literary Society, Pink Ink, and the Romance Writers of America. In 2014, the Lambda Literary Foundation awarded Barot with the Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist award acknowledging her as an established author with a strong following and the promise of future high-quality work. In 2015 she was a featured author in the award-winning documentary film about the romance writing and reading community, Love Between the Covers, from Blueberry Hill Productions. In 2019 she was named a Trailblazer in Romance by the Romance Writers of America, for her works of LGBTQ+ fiction. In 2021, she was named one of The Advocate's Women of the Year.
Aaron Hamburger is an American writer best known for his short story collection The View from Stalin's Head (2004) and novels Faith for Beginners (2005) and Nirvana Is Here (2019).
Stacey D'Erasmo is an American author and literary critic.
Trebor Healey is an American poet and novelist. He was born in San Francisco, raised in Seattle, and studied English and American Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He spent his twenties in San Francisco, where he was active in the spoken word scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, publishing five chapbooks of poetry as well as numerous poems and short stories in various reviews, journals, anthologies and zines.
Saints and Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival is an alternative literary festival specializing in LGBTQ+ literature. It is held in various locations around the French Quarter neighborhood in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, each March. The event is coordinated by the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival.
Noël Alumit is an American novelist, actor, and activist. He was identified as one of the Top 100 Influential Gay People by Out Magazine.
Silas Dwane House is an American writer best known for his novels. He is also a music journalist, environmental activist, and columnist. His fiction is known for its attention to the natural world, working-class characters, and the plight of the rural place and rural people. House is also known as a representative for LGBTQ Appalachians and Southerners, and is among the most visible LGBTQ people associated with rural America.
Michael Lowenthal, an American fiction writer, is the author of four novels, most recently The Paternity Test. Currently an instructor of creative writing at Lesley University, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Wesleyan writers' conferences, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers. His short stories have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The Kenyon Review, Tin House, and Esquire.
Lee Lynch is an American author writing primarily on lesbian themes, specifically noted for authentic characterizing of butch and femme characters in fiction. She is the recipient of a Golden Crown Literary Society Trail Blazer award for lifetime achievement, as well as being the namesake for the Golden Crown Literary Society's Lee Lynch Classics Award.
Brian Leung is an American fiction writer, whose short story collection World Famous Love Acts won the 2005 Asian American Literary Award for fiction and the Mary McCarthy Award in Short Fiction. He has also written three novels.
Barry Webster is a Canadian writer. Originally from Toronto, Ontario, he is currently based in Montreal, Quebec.
Susan Stinson is an American writer. She has published four novels and a collection of poetry.
The 23rd Lambda Literary Awards were held in 2011, to honour works of LGBT literature published in 2010.
Ryka Aoki is an American author of novels, poetry, and essays. She teaches English at Santa Monica College and gender studies at Antioch University.
Brontez Purnell is an American writer, musician, dancer, and director based out of Oakland, California. He is the author of several award-winning books, including Since I Laid My Burden Down (2017), 100 Boyfriends (2022), which won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction, and the punk zine Fag School. Purnell is the frontman for the punk band The Younger Lovers and is the founder of the Brontez Purnell Dance Company.
Vi Khi Nao is a cross-genre writer from Long Khánh, Vietnam. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Brown University, where she received the John Hawkes Prize, the Feldman Prize and the Kim Ann Arstark Memorial Award. She was the 2022 recipient of Lambda Literary's Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize.