On Thursday, May 28th, I attended the 21st Annual Lambda Literary Awards, gladly scooping up the invitation from Charles Flowers, Executive Director of the Lambda Literary Foundation, to Bilerico.
Like all bloggers, I have my literary heroes, some of the highest ranking of whom were in the house.
I met the shy Andrew Holleran whom I know only via telephone and email. He and the wry Felice Picano and the sly Edmund White received "Pioneer Awards" as the surviving members of The Violet Quill who assembled and disbanded in New York in 1980-81. As Felice Picano remembers it, "We were the first who insisted on sex, intellect and emotion all together in our books."
73 judges voted for finalists in 22 categories.
The judges included two Bilerico contributors, Brent Hartinger and Jesse Monteagudo (Bilerico Florida), and the finalists included Bilerico contributor Nancy Polikoff in the LGBT Nonfiction category for her book Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage.
Bilerico's own Kate Clinton was a presenter, and delivered the best line of the evening with "I know the economy is bad because yesterday when I bought a toaster, they gave me a bank."
Christopher Rice, Lambda Literary Foundation Board President, unveiled the Foundation's brand new website, built by a group called Bilerico Media, LLC....
Given all the Bilerico impact on the evening, one might expect a future expansion of categories to include online writing of the sort that one might find on a certain group blog.
I had a wonderful time at the 21st Annual Lambda Literary Awards, where I ended the evening reminiscing about roses with the poet Mark Doty who had lived a few houses down the street from me in Provincetown.
And for the record, the winner in the gay fiction category for his book We Disappear, Scott Heim, is hot.
In addition to this slideshow, I snagged video interviews with Edmund White, Felice Picano, Kate Clinton and Michaelangelo Signorile. Look for them throughout the week.
21st LAMBDA LITERARY
AWARD WINNERS
BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 2008
BISEXUAL
Open, Jenny Block, Seal Press
TRANSGENDER
Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word), Thea Hillman, Manic D Press
LGBT ANTHOLOGIES
Our Caribbean, edited by Thomas Glave, Duke University Press
LGBT CHILDRENS/YOUNG ADULT
Out of the Pocket, Bill Konigsberg, Dutton
LGBT DRAMA
The Second Coming of Joan of Arc, Carolyn Gage, Outskirts Press
LGBT NONFICTION
Loving The Difficult, Jane Rule, Hedgerow Press
LGBT SCI-FI/FANTASY/HORROR
Turnskin, Nicole Kimberling, Blind Eye Books
LGBT STUDIES
Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality, Regina Kunzel, The University of Chicago Press
LESBIAN DEBUT FICTION
The Bruise, Magdalena Zurawski, Fiction Collective Two/University of Alabama Press
LESBIAN EROTICA
In Deep Waters 2: Cruising the Strip, Radclyffe and Karen Kallmaker, Bold Strokes Books
LESBIAN FICTION (a tie!)
The Sealed Letter, Emma Donoghue, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
All the Pretty Girls, Chandra Mayor, Conundrum Press
LESBIAN MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
Sex Talks to Girls, Maureen Seaton, University of
Arkansas Press
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We want to know your opinion on this issue! While arguing about an opinion or idea is encouraged, personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please be respectful of others.
The editorial team will delete a comment that is off-topic, abusive, exceptionally incoherent, includes a slur or is soliciting and/or advertising. Repeated violations of the policy will result in revocation of your user account. Please keep in mind that this is our online home; ill-mannered house guests will be shown the door.