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.
Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter. Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donoghue's 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin (2000) won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards. Room was adapted by Donoghue into a film of the same name. For this, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at College of Staten Island (CSI) and a Fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award.
Lesléa Newman, born November 5, 1955 in Brooklyn, New York City, is an American author, editor, and feminist. Four of her young adult novels have been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, making her one of the most celebrated authors in the category.
Michelle Tea is an American author, poet, and literary arts organizer whose autobiographical works explore queer culture, feminism, race, class, sex work, and other topics. She is originally from Chelsea, Massachusetts and was identified with the San Francisco, California literary and arts community for many years. She currently lives in Los Angeles. Her books, mostly memoirs, are known for their exposition of the queercore community.
Connie Wilkins is an American author of lesbian themed science fiction and fantasy erotica published under the title Wild Flesh. Wilkins is based in Massachusetts.
Katherine V. Forrest is a Canadian-born American writer, best known for her novels about lesbian police detective Kate Delafield. Her books have won and been finalists for Lambda Literary Award twelve times, as well as other awards. She has been referred to by some "a founding mother of lesbian fiction writing."
Ellen Hart is the award-winning mystery author of the Jane Lawless and Sophie Greenway series. Born in Maine, she was a professional chef for 14 years. Hart's mysteries include culinary elements similar to those of Diane Mott Davidson.
Firebrand Books is a publishing house established in 1984 by Nancy K. Bereano---a lesbian/feminist activist in Ithaca, NY. Karen Oosterhouse, publisher since 2003, describes Firebrand as "the independent publisher of record for feminist and lesbian fiction and nonfiction," championing "authors whose work has been marginalized: women of color, women coming out of poverty, transwomen, the genderqueer, and other underrepresented voices." It is among the many feminist and lesbian publishing houses that grew out of the Women's Press Movement; other presses of that period include Naiad Press, Persephone and Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
Ariel Gore is a journalist, memoirist, novelist, nonfiction author, and teacher. Gore has authored more than ten books. Gore's fiction and nonfiction work also explores creativity, spirituality, queer culture, and positive psychology. She is the founding editor/publisher of Hip Mama, an Alternative Press Award-winning publication covering the culture and politics of motherhood. Through her work on Hip Mama, Gore is widely credited with launching maternal feminism and the contemporary mothers' movement.
O Street is a 2007 short story collection written by Corrina Wycoff. Called a "novel-in-stories" by OV Books, it explores the troubled life of young professional Beth Dinard from the perspective of the character herself as well as others around her. O Street was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Debut Fiction in 2007.
Joan Nestle is a Lambda Award winning writer and editor and a founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, which holds, among other things, everything she has ever written. She is openly lesbian and sees her work of archiving history as critical to her identity as "a woman, as a lesbian, and as a Jew".
Mary Wings is an active American cartoonist, writer, and artist. She is known for highlighting lesbian themes in her work. In 1973, she made history by releasing Come Out Comix, the first lesbian comic book. She is also known for her series of detective novels featuring lesbian heroine Emma Victor. Divine Victim, Wings' only Gothic novel, won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Mystery in 1994.
Gayl Jones is an American writer from Lexington, Kentucky. She is recognized as a key figure in 20th century African-American literature. Imani Perry posits Jones as "one of the most versatile and transformative writers of the 20th century" while Calvin Baker describes her as "The Best American Novelist Whose Name You May Not Know."
Karin Kallmaker is an American author of lesbian fiction whose works also include those originally written under the name Laura Adams. Her writings span lesbian romance, lesbian erotica, and lesbian science-fiction/fantasy. Dubbed the Queen of Lesbian Romance, she publishes exclusively in the lesbian market as a matter of personal choice.
Terry Wolverton is an American novelist, memoirist, poet, and editor. Her book Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building, a memoir published in 2002 by City Lights Books, was named one of the "Best Books of 2002" by the Los Angeles Times, and was the winner of the 2003 Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Her novel-in-poems Embers was a finalist for the PEN USA Litfest Poetry Award and the Lambda Book Award.
How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity is an anthology of LGBTQ short stories for young adults edited by American author Michael Cart. It was first published in 2009. The anthology contains an introduction by Cart, 11 short stories, and one novella by acclaimed lesbian and gay authors.
Diana Souhami is an English writer of biographies, short stories and plays. She is noted for her unconventional biographies of prominent lesbians.
Becky Birtha is an American poet and children's author who lives in the greater Philadelphia area. She is best known for her poetry and short stories depicting African-American and lesbian relationships, often focusing on topics such as interracial relationships, emotional recovery from a breakup, single parenthood and adoption. Her poetry was featured in the acclaimed 1983 anthology of African-American feminist writing Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, edited by Barbara Smith and published by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. She has won a Lambda Literary award for her poetry. She has been awarded grants from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to further her literary works. In recent years she has written three children's historical fiction picture books about the African-American experience.
