Here are the finalists for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award.
Today, Lambda Literary announced the finalists for its annual Award, which recognizes and celebrates the best queer fiction and nonfiction published in the last year.
The 120 finalists of the Prize, now in its 33rd year, were selected across 24 categories—Lesbian Fiction, Gay Fiction, Bisexual Fiction, Transgender Fiction, Bisexual Nonfiction, Transgender Nonfiction, LGBTQ Nonfiction, Lesbian Poetry, Gay Poetry, Bisexual Poetry, Transgender Poetry, Lesbian Memoir/Biography, Gay Memoir/Biography, Lesbian Romance, Gay Romance, LGBTQ Anthology, LGBTQ Children’s/Middle Grade, LGBTQ Young Adult, LGBTQ Comics, LGBTQ Drama, LGBTQ Erotica, LGBTQ Mystery, LGBTQ Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror, LGBTQ Studies—by a panel of over 60 literary professionals from more than 1,000 book submissions.
The winners will be announced on June 1, 2021 in a free virtual event; you can get tickets here.
Congrats to all!
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2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalists
LESBIAN FICTION
K-Ming Chang, Bestiary
Francesca Ekwuyasi, Butter Honey Pig Bread
Jennifer Steil, Exile Music
Juli Delgado Lopera, Fiebre Tropical
Jean Kyoung Frazier, Pizza Girl
GAY FICTION
Garth Greenwell, Cleanness
Joon Oluchi Lee, Neotenica
Brandon Taylor, Real Life
Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain
Dennis E. Staples, This Town Sleeps
BISEXUAL FICTION
Elisabeth Thomas, Catherine House
C Pam Zhang, How Much of These Hills is Gold
Sulaiman Addonia, Silence Is My Mother Tongue
Talia Hibbert, Take a Hint, Dani Brown
Zaina Arafat, You Exist Too Much
TRANSGENDER FICTION
Nino Cipri, Finna
Chana Porter, The Seep
Vivek Shraya, The Subtweet
Zeyn Joukhadar, The Thirty Names of Night
Lydia Rogue, Trans-Galactic Bike Ride: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories of Transgender and Nonbinary Adventurers
BISEXUAL NONFICTION
Natasha Sajé, Terroir: Love, Out of Place
Emma Copley Eisenberg, The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia
Shayla Lawson, This Is Major: Notes of Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope
Alden Jones, The Wanting Was a Wilderness: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and the Art of Memoir
Samantha Irby, Wow, No Thank You.: Essays
TRANSGENDER NONFICTION
J Mase III & Dane Figueroa Edidi, The Black Trans Prayer Book
Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, The Freezer Door
Linda Heidenreich, Nepantla Squared: Transgender Mestiz@ Histories in Times of Global Shift
Hil Malatino, Trans Care
LGBTQ NONFICTION
Ruth Coker Burks, All the Young Men
Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué and Erich Kessel Jr.,An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979–1989
Marty Fink, Forget Burial: HIV Kinship, Disability, and Queer/Trans Narratives of Care
Josephine Donovan, The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America
Ashon T. Crawley, The Lonely Letters
LESBIAN POETRY
Roya Marsh, dayliGht
Sarah M. Sala, Devil’s Lake
Mary Jean Chan, Flèche
Pamela Sneed, Funeral Diva
Kimberly Alidio, : once teeth bones coral :
GAY POETRY
Tommye Blount, Fantasia for the Man in Blue
Eduardo C. Corral, Guillotine
Justin Phillip Reed, The Malevolent Volume
Romeo Oriogun, Sacrament of Bodies
Ted Rees, Thanksgiving: A Poem
BISEXUAL POETRY
George Abraham, Birthright
Meghan Privitello, One God at a Time
Aricka Foreman, Salt Body Shimmer
Jody Chan, sick
S*an D. Henry-Smith, Wild Peach
TRANSGENDER POETRY
Aeon Ginsberg, Greyhound
Sade LaNay, I Love You and I’m Not Dead
Kay Ulanday Barrett, More Than Organs
Maxe Crandall, The Nancy Reagan Collection
Jay Besemer, Theories of Performance
LESBIAN MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
Tania De Rozario, And The Walls Come Crumbling Down
Lori Soderlind, The Change: My Great American, Postindustrial, Midlife Crisis Tour
Tana Wojczuk, Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity
Jenn Shapland, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
Nina Kennedy, Practicing for Love: A Memoir
GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
Mohsin Zaidi, A Dutiful Boy: A Memoir of a Gay Muslim’s Journey to Acceptance
R. Eric Thomas, Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America
Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body
John Birdsall, The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard
Dr. François S. Clemmons, Officer Clemmons: A Memoir
LESBIAN ROMANCE
Clare Ashton, Finding Jessica Lambert
Anna Burke, Nottingham
Ali Vali, One More Chance
Alexandria Bellefleur, Written in the Stars
Jae, Wrong Number, Right Woman
GAY ROMANCE
Adriana Herrera, Finding Joy
Lance Ringel, Flower of Iowa
Felice Stevens, The Ghost and Charlie Muir
Erin Colleen McRae & Racheline Maltese, Ink and Ice
Cat Sebastian, Two Rogues Make a Right
LGBTQ ANTHOLOGY
Ejeris Dixon & Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement
dave ring, Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn’t Die
Joshua Whitehead, Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction
os Twist, Ben Vincent, Meg-John Barker & Kat Gupta, Non-Binary Lives: An Anthology of Intersecting Identities
Andrea Abi-Karam & Kay Gabriel, We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics
LGBTQ CHILDREN’S/MIDDLE GRADE
Niki Smith, The Deep & Dark Blue
Vincent X. Kirsch, From Archie to Zack
Phil Bildner, A High Five for Glenn Burke
Kacen Callender, King and the Dragonflies
Peter Mercurio, Our Subway Baby
LGBTQ YOUNG ADULT
L.C. Rosen, Camp
Mike Curato, Flamer
Trung Le Nguyen, The Magic Fish
Agnes Borinsky, Sasha Masha
Leah Johnson, You Should See Me in a Crown
LGBTQ COMICS
Bishakh Som, Apsara Engine
Sophie Yanow, The Contradictions
Yao Xiao, Everything Is Beautiful, and I’m Not Afraid: A Baopu Collection
Tina Horn, Michael Dowling, Alejandra Gutiérrez & Jen Hickman, SFSX (Safe Sex), Vol. 1: Protection
Bishakh Som, Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir
LGBTQ DRAMA
Jacqueline Goldfinger, Babel
Yilong Liu, The Book of Mountains and Seas
Liza Birkenmeier & Jill Sobule, F*ck7thGrade
Sarah Einspanier, House Plant
R. Eric Thomas, Safe Space
LGBTQ EROTICA
Sinclair Sexsmith, Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 5
Anne Shade, Femme Tales
Lena Suksi, The Nerves
Andrea Purcell, Smut Peddler Presents: Silver
Kel Hardy, Smut Peddlers: Glad Day 50
LGBTQ MYSTERY
A.E. Radley, Death Before Dessert
Cheryl A. Head, Find Me When I’m Lost
Stephen Spotswood, Fortune Favors the Dead
Tom Ryan, I Hope You’re Listening
Rosalie Knecht, Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery
LGBTQ SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY/HORROR
Rebecca Roanhorse, Black Sun
Julian K. Jarboe, Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel
Zen Cho, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
Tlotlo Tsamaase, The Silence of the Wilting Skin
Aaron A. Reed, Subcutanean
LGBTQ STUDIES
Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World
Cait McKinney, Information Activism: A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies
José Esteban Muñoz, The Sense of Brown
Janet R. Jakobsen, The Sex Obsession: Perversity and Possibility in American Politics
Jane Ward, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality
