Year Author Title Publisher Result Ref. 1997 Bernadette Brooten Love Between Women Winner Honor Moore White Blackbird Finalist Leslie Feinberg Transgender Warriors Finalist 1998 Margot Peters May Sarton Winner Amy Hoffman Hospital Time Finalist Sherrie Inness The Lesbian Menace Finalist 1999 Jack Halberstam Female Masculinity Winner Alison Bechdel The Incredible Bechdel Finalist Jill Johnston Admission Accomplished Finalist 2000 Hilary Lapsley Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women University of Massachusetts Press Winner Joan Larkin A Woman Like That: Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories Avon Finalist Lillian Faderman To Believe in Women Houghton Mifflin Finalist 2001 Amber Hollibaugh My Dangerous Desires Duke University Press Winner Bonnie J. Morris Girl Reel Coffee House Press Finalist Carole Maso The Room Lit by Roses Counterpoint Finalist 2002 Laura L. Doan Fashioning Sapphism Columbia University Press Winner Adrienne Rich Arts of the Possible W. W. Norton Finalist Suzanna Danuta Walters All the Rage University of Chicago Press Finalist 2003 Terry Wolverton Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Women’s Building City Lights Winner Magie Dominic The Queen of Peace Room Wilfrid Laurier University Press Finalist Suzanna Rodriguez Wild at Heart Ecco/HarperCollins Finalist 2004 Lillian Faderman Naked in the Promised Land Houghton Mifflin Winner Andrew Wilson Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith Bloomsbury Finalist Casey Charles The Sharon Kowalski Case: Lesbian and Gay Rights on Trial University Press of Kansas Finalist 2005 Alison Smith Name All the Animals Scribner Winner Alexis De Veaux Warrior Poet: A Life of Audre Lorde W. W. Norton Finalist Evelyn C. White Alice Walker W. W. Norton Finalist 2006 Tania Katan My One-Night Stand with Cancer Alyson Books Winner [ 2] Diana Souhami Wild Girls St. Martin’s Press Finalist Gretchen Legler On the Ice Milkweed Editions Finalist 2007 Alison Bechdel Fun Home Houghton Mifflin Winner [ 3] Catherine Friend Hit by a Farm Marlowe & Company Finalist Marcia Gallo Different Daughters Carroll & Graf Finalist 2008 Janet Malcolm Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice Yale University Press Winner [ 4] Amy Hoffman An Army of Ex-Lovers University of Massachusetts Press Finalist Sharon Marcus Between Women Princeton University Press Finalist 2009 Andrea Weiss In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain University of Chicago Press Winner [ 5] Nancy D. Polikoff Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage Beacon Press Finalist Regina Kunzel Criminal Intimacy University of Chicago Press Finalist 2010 Rebecca Brown American Romances City Lights Winner Joan Schenkar The Talented Miss Highsmith St. Martin’s Press Finalist Mary Cappello Called Back Alyson Books Finalist 2011 Barbara Hammer Hammer! The Feminist Press Winner [ 6] Emma Donoghue Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature Alfred A. Knopf Finalist Terry Castle The Professor and Other Writings Harper/HarperCollins Finalist 2012 Jeanne Córdova When We Were Outlaws Spinsters Ink Winner Gayle S. Rubin Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader Duke University Press Finalist Lisa L. Moore Sister Arts: The Erotics of Lesbian Landscapes University of Minnesota Press Finalist 2013 Alison Bechdel Are You My Mother? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Winner [ 7] Jeanette Winterson Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal Grove Press Finalist Kate Bornstein A Queer and Pleasant Danger Beacon Press Finalist Kelly Barth My Almost Certainly Real Imaginary Jesus Arktoi/Red Hen Finalist 2014 Julia M. Allen Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins SUNY Press Winner [ 8] [ 9] Donna Minkowitz Growing Up Golem Magnus Books/Riverdale Avenue Finalist [ 10] Jennifer Finney Boylan Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders Crown Finalist [ 10] Julia Serano Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive Seal Press Finalist [ 10] 2015 Barbara Smith Virginia Eubanks Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: 40 Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith SUNY Press Winner [ 11] Ariel Gore The End of Eve Hawthorne Books Finalist Daisy Hernandez A Cup of Water Under My Bed Beacon Press Finalist Kelly Cogswell Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger University of Minnesota Press Finalist 2016 Marcia Gallo "No One Helped": Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy Cornell University Press Winner [ 12] Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home Arsenal Pulp Press Finalist Lillian Faderman The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle Simon and Schuster Finalist Maggie Thrash Honor Girl Candlewick Press Finalist 2017 Sarah Schulman Conflict Is Not Abuse Arsenal Pulp Press Winner [ 13] [ 14] [ 15] Elizabeth M. Edman Queer Virtue Beacon Press Finalist Emily K. Hobson Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left University of California Press Finalist 2018 Rosalind Rosenberg Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray Oxford University Press Winner [ 16] Eileen Myles Afterglow Grove Press Finalist Melissa Febos Abandon Me Bloomsbury USA Finalist Myriam Gurba Mean Coffee House Press Finalist 2019 Imani Perry Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry Beacon Press Winner [ 17] E. Patrick Johnson Black, Queer, Southern, Women: An Oral History University of North Carolina Press Finalist [ 18] Jaime Harker The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon University of North Carolina Press Finalist [ 18] Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice Arsenal Pulp Press Finalist [ 18] 2020 Carmen Maria Machado In the Dream House Graywolf Press Winner [ 19] [ 20] Saidiya Hartman Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments W. W. Norton Winner [ 19] [ 20] Benjamin Moser Sontag: Her Life and Work Ecco Finalist [ 21] Samra Habib We Have Always Been Here Viking / Penguin Canada Finalist [ 21] 2021 Jenn Shapland My Autobiography of Carson McCullers Tin House Winner [ 22] [ 23] Hilary Holladay The Power of Adrienne Rich Nan A. Talese/Doubleday Finalist Julie Marie Wade Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press Finalist Tana Wojczuk Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster Finalist 2022 Briona Simone Jones Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought The New Press Winner [ 24] Alison Bechdel The Secret to Superhuman Strength Mariner Finalist Jackie Kay Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography Vintage Finalist Lauren Hough Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing Vintage Finalist 2023 Raquel Gutierrez Brown Neon Coffee House Press Winner [ 25] [ 26] Leslie Absher Spy Daughter, Queer Girl: In Search of Truth and Acceptance in a Family of Secrets Latah Books Finalist MB Cashetta A Cheerleader’s Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment Engine Books Finalist Wendy L. Rouse Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement NYU Press Finalist 2024 Barbara Jane Brickman Suffering Sappho!: Lesbian Camp in American Popular Culture Rutgers University Press Winner [ 27] [ 28] Cookie Woolner The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire Before Stonewall University of North Carolina Press Finalist [ 29] Lamya H Hijab Butch Blues Dial Press Finalist [ 29] A.V. Marraccini We the Parasites Sublunary Editions Finalist [ 29] 2025 Sandra Gail Lambert My Withered Legs and Other Essays University of Georgia Press Finalist [ 30] June Thomas A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces that Shaped Queer Women’s Culture Seal Press Hatchett Book Group Finalist [ 30] Sarah Leavitt Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love Arsenal Pulp Press Finalist [ 30] Alexis Pauline Gumbs Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde Farrar, Straus and Giroux Finalist [ 30] 
