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 Lambda Literary Awards are the most comprehensive awards dedicated to LGBTQ literature in the U.S.[1]:123 They recognize books published in English, available in the U.S., and covering LGBTQ+ themes in specific subject categories.[1]:9[2] In addition to the primary literary awards, Lambda Literary also presents a number of special awards.[3]
Lambda Literary Awards are bestowed in a number of categories across genres and identities.[4] Categories change with time, especially via combination or splitting. This is usually based on the foundation's estimate of whether a given category will receive more than 20 submissions for three years in a row.[6] If a category receives less than ten books in a year, it will not compete, and its books may be reassigned.[4] Categories may also be added to recognize works pertaining to more identities along the LGBTQ+ spectrum.[6]
Winners of the Lambda Literary Awards, also known as "Lammy Awards", are announced at an award ceremony, and given trophies but no cash prize.[6] The Lambda Literary Foundation also publishes sponsored Special Prizes, whose winners are announced close to the ceremony and offered cash prizes.[7]
LGBTQ+ Romance & Erotica, previously split into Erotica and Romance, with Erotica sometimes split into Gay Erotica and Lesbian Erotica
Speculative Fiction, previously Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, sometimes split into Gay Science Fiction and Fantasy and Lesbian Science Fiction and Fantasy.[c]
LGBTQ+ Studies, previously split into Gay Studies and Lesbian Studies
Transgender Literature, often split into Transgender Fiction, Transgender Non-Fiction, and Transgender Poetry. Previously called Transgender/Genderqueer Literature.[a][b]
Awards are often combined with similar ones when there aren't enough recurring submissions to sustain a category, but sometimes awards are discontinued.[6] Some categories are removed for a given year when there are too few submissions.[4] The first Lambda Literary Awards were in twelve categories, predominantly focused on gay and lesbian literature. Many have since grown into broader categories or become inactive. There were two original prizes: Editor's Choice and Publisher Service, which have also ended.[2]
Awards
AIDS Literature (1–3)
Arts and Culture
Belles Lettres
Editor's Choice
Humor
LGBT Debut Fiction, previously split into Gay Debut Fiction and Lesbian Debut Fiction
Photography/Visual Arts, previously Visual Arts
Small Press, previously split into Gay Small Press and Lesbian Small Press
L. Page "Deacon" Macubbin started the Lambda Book Report in 1987 to recognize works by LGBTQ writers, but he wanted to establish complementary awards to create further recognition. The first Lambda Literary Awards were held in 1989 for works published in 1988.[10] There were twelve categories based on genre, subject, style, publisher, and identity, and two additional awards.[1]:136-137 The initial awards predominantly focused on gay and lesbian literature, with many categories specifically devoted to genre work targeted at either identity.[2]
The awards recognize books published in English and available in the U.S., so almost all finalists have been U.S. or Canadian works.[1]:9 The awards have also required submissions to be published as printed books. This made it much less likely that self-published authors, especially those marginalized or excluded from publishing opportunities, could compete.[1]:110
Early categories such as HIV/AIDS literature were dropped as the prominence of the AIDS crisis within the gay community waned, and categories for bisexual and transgender literature were added as the community became more inclusive.[10] The first award for trans literature was in 1997.[11] A bisexual category was first added in 2002 as part of the lone category for trans works, and a bisexual category returned on its own in 2006.[2]
Until 2002, books could be nominated for an award for free, and nomination forms were shared via the Lambda Book Report, via publisher mailing lists, and at gay and lesbian bookstores. Some readers claimed this process was too much of a popularity contest or easily swayed towards works favored by literary elites, with Naiad Press sometimes blamed for having an advantage over smaller independent presses.[1]:111-113 Nominations changed in 2003 to require a $15 fee, several book copies, and only allow submissions from publishers, authors, and people associated with a given book.[1]:113-114
Lambda Awards have defined eligible literature as works dealing with themes of an award's identity label, rather than works written by authors whose identities match the award.[1]:129-131 They changed this policy from 2009-2012 due to criticism that the awards weren't honoring enough LGBTQ authors, but further controversy led the foundation to revert the change and instead ensure judges identify as LGBTQ, while reserving three special prizes for authors with LGBTQ identities.[12]:190 However, the underlying requirements for the new prizes excluded bisexual and trans people.[13] By 2013, the judging panels and leadership of the awards had also grown more diverse, across intersections including gender, race, ability, age, job, and location, than in previous years.[11]
By 2012, submissions had grown to a record of 600 works from 250 publishers.[13] The program grew to 22 awards in 2013, and 26 in 2026.[10][4] The awards have retained many categories specifically for gay and lesbian literature, but slowly added more categories that are identity-neutral within the bounds of the LGBT, or later LGBTQ and LGBTQ+ spectrums.[1]:138[2][4] For instance, in 2018, a few awards and prizes specified that they were open to LGBTQ works, while others were listed under LGBT or more specific identities.[12]:21As of 2018[update] there had been no identity-based award categories involving race, and the only intersectional category was Spirituality.[1]:146 A special prize, the Randall Kenan Prize for Black LGBTQ Fiction, was given annually from 2021 to 2025.[7]
Since 2022[update], submissions for Lambda Awards may be made without supplying paper copies of the work, but the foundation states this may hurt the book's advancement through rounds of judging. However, some books submitted this way have made it to the finalist round.[4]
Ellen Hart has won five awards in the Lesbian Mystery category, the most by any single author, and is one of only three writers to have won the award more than once (with three-time winners Katherine V. Forrest and J. M. Redmann). Similarly, Michael Nava has won five awards in the Gay Mystery category, the most by any single author, and is one of only four writers to have won the award more than once (with three-time winner John Morgan Wilson, two-time winner R. D. Zimmerman, and two-time winner Marshall Thornton). Marshall Thornton is the only author in the gay mystery category to have won twice for two different series.
Richard Labonté, Radclyffe, and Tristan Taormino have each won two awards in the Erotica category, each winning once before the category was split into Gay and Lesbian subdivisions, and each winning their second after the category was split.
Karin Kallmaker and Michael Thomas Ford have each won two awards in the Romance category, each winning one before the category was split into Gay and Lesbian subdivisions – Kallmaker with Maybe Next Time and Ford with Last Summer, but in 2004 – and each winning their second after the category was split – Ford with Changing Tides in 2008 and Kallmaer with The Kiss That Counted in 2009.
Several authors have won awards in three different categories:
Katherine V. Forrest won the Scifi/Fantasy/Horror award for Daughters of an Emerald Dusk in 2005 and the Pioneer Award in 2013 in addition to her five Lesbian Mystery awards.
Eileen Myles received the Small Press award for The New Fuck You in 1996, the Lesbian Poetry award for School of Fish in 1998 and the Lesbian Fiction award for Inferno (A Poet's Novel) in 2010.
Several other writers have won awards in more than one category in different years and for different works:
Alison Bechdel won the Lesbian Biography/Autobiography award for The Indelible Alison Bechdel in 1999, the Lesbian Memoir/Biography award for Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic in 2007, and the Trustee Award in 2014 in addition to her four Humor awards.
Joan Nestle won the Lesbian Studies award for A Fragile Union in 1999 in addition to her four Anthology awards.
Jeanette Winterson won the Lesbian Fiction award for Written on the Body in 1994 and the Lesbian Memoir/Biography award for Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? in 2013.
Judy Grahn won the Lesbian Non-Fiction award for Really Reading Gertrude Stein in 1990 and the Poetry award for love belongs to those who do the feeling in 2009.
Rafael Campo won the Gay Poetry award for What the Body Told in 1997 and the Gay Biography/Autobiography award for The Poetry of Healing in 1998.
Devon Carbado and Donald Weise won the Fiction Anthology award for Black Like Us in 2003 and the LGBT Studies award for Time on Two Crosses in 2004. Weise also won the Fiction Anthology award again in 2005.
Mykola Dementiuk won the Bisexual Fiction award for Holy Communion in 2010 and the Gay Erotica award for The Facialist in 2013.
Dwight McBride won the Gay Fiction Anthology award for Black Like Us in 2003 and the LGBT Studies award for The Delectable Negro in 2015
Jeff Mann won the Gay Erotica award in 2007 for A History of Barbed Wire and the Gay Romance award in 2015 for Salvation
Winners of multiple awards in a year
Several writers have won awards in more than one category in the same year for the same work (note that according to current guidelines a book may only be entered in one category):
Paul Monette received both Gay Non-Fiction and AIDS Literature awards for Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir in 1989.
Lisa C. Moore received both Small Press and Lesbian Studies awards for Does Your Mama Know? in 1998.
James Saslow received both Gay Studies and Visual Arts awards for Pictures and Passions in 2000.
Noelle Howey and Ellen Samuels received both Anthologies/Non-Fiction and Children's/Young Adult awards for Out of the Ordinary in 2001.
Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons received both LGBT Arts & Culture and LGBT Non-Fiction awards for Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians in 2007.
Several writers have won awards in more than one category in the same year for different works:
Jacqueline Woodson received the awards for Children/Young Adult (with From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun) and Lesbian Fiction (with Autobiography of a Family Photo) in 1996.
Radclyffe received the awards for Erotica (with Stolen Moments) and Romance (with Distant Shores, Silent Thunder) in 2006.
Karin Kallmaker received the awards for Erotica (with In Deep Water 2: Cruising the Strip, which she co-authored with Radclyffe) and Lesbian Romance (with The Kiss That Counted) in 2009.
The Lambda Literary Awards are presented each year to honor works of literature published in the previous year; accordingly, the first awards ceremony may be described in different sources as either the 1989 awards (for the year of presentation) or the 1988 awards (for the year in which the nominated works were published). Submissions are usually open from September-November for titles published in the same year. Finalists will be announced in the spring; and winners will be announced in the fall.[6][14] For Special Prizes, submissions have opened in March of the award year, for titles published the year before, but in 2026 submissions ran from January to February.[6][7]
Led by BiNet USA,[19] and assisted by other bisexual organizations including the American Institute of Bisexuality, BiPOL, and Bialogue, the bisexual community launched a multi-year struggle that eventually culminated in 2006 with the addition of a Bisexual category.[20]Sheela Lambert was one of these activists: when the Bisexual category grew, then shrank, by 2012, Lambert launched the Bisexual Book Awards to offer more opportunities for the recognition of bisexual literature.[21]
Transgender community and The Man Who Would Be Queen
Transgender people immediately protested the nomination and gathered thousands of petition signatures in opposition within a few days. After the petition, the Foundation's judges examined the book more closely, decided that they considered it transphobic and removed it from their list of finalists.[22] Within a year the executive director who had initially approved of the book's inclusion resigned.[23] Executive director Charles Flowers later stated that "the Bailey incident revealed flaws in our awards nomination process, which I have completely overhauled since becoming the foundation’s executive director in January 2006."[24]
12In both the bisexual and transgender categories, presentation may vary according to the number of eligible titles submitted in any given year. If the number of titles warrants, then separate awards are presented in either two (Fiction and Nonfiction, with the Fiction category inclusive of poetry titles) or three (Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry) categories, while if a smaller number of titles is deemed eligible, then a merged Literature shortlist is put forward. However, even when the category shortlists have been merged, judges still retain the right to identify a single winner in the unlisted category; for example, at the 25th Lambda Literary Awards in 2013 the judges named both fiction and non-fiction winners in the Bisexual Literature category, and at the 29th Lambda Literary Awards in 2017 the judges picked a title from the Bisexual Fiction shortlist as the winner in Bisexual Poetry despite the lack of an advance poetry shortlist.[citation needed]
12The Transgender Literature and Bisexual Literature categories were combined into one Transgender/Bisexual category for 2002, which was the first explicit representation of a Bisexual category. Bisexual awards returned as their own categories in 2006.[2]
12Science Fiction and Mystery were categorized as Gay Mystery/Science Fiction and Lesbian Mystery/Science Fiction for the first year of the Lambdas, and separated thereafter.[2]
References
12345678910Young, Andrew J. (May 2018). From "Telling Transgender Stories" to "Transgender People Telling Stories": Transgender Literature and the Lambda Literary Awards, 1997-2017 (PhD thesis). Temple University.
12Stamper, Christine N. (2018). Prizing Cycles of Marginalization: Paired Progression and Regression in Award-Winning LGBTQ-Themed YA Fiction (PhD thesis). The Ohio State University.
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