Stonewall Book Award
The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the LGBTQIA+ experience" in English-language books, primarily focusing on those published in the U.S., the award categories are the Barbara Gittings Literature Award, Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award, and Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children's and Young Adult Literature Award. They are sponsored by the Rainbow Round Table of the American Library Association.
The Stonewall Book Award began as the Gay Book Award in 1971, when the Rainbow Round Table was a grassroots group called the Task Force on Gay Liberation. The program has been an official American Library Association award since 1986. Barbara Gittings and Israel Fishman were founding members of the Task Force on Gay Liberation, with Fishman serving as the group's first coordinator, and Gittings making their first bibliography of gay-positive literature. Mike Morgan and Larry Romans were partners and longtime supporters of the awards.
Finalists for each category of the Stonewall Book Award have been publicly designated since 1990, and termed "Honor Books" from 2001., separate panels of librarians judge books for the awards: they select the winning book for each category and choose which honor books to name from the semi-finalists. The winners are announced in January and each receives a plaque and $1000 cash prize during the ALA Annual Conference in June or July. Winners are expected to attend and to give acceptance speeches.
The Stonewall Book Award is one of a number of LGBTQ literary awards. Other prominent awards include the Lambda Literary Awards, Publishing Triangle Awards, and Gaylactic Spectrum Awards.
Submissions
The ALA solicits book suggestions each to be accompanied by a brief statement in favor of the book. Anyone may suggest a title for consideration. However, the publisher of a proposed title, agents or representatives of the author, or anyone else who may stand to gain directly from the nomination of the book should disclose this information via the online form.Eligible books should be original works published in the U.S. and Canada during the preceding year, including "substantially changed new editions" and "English-language translations of foreign-language books".
History
The Gay Book Award was inaugurated in 1971 at the ALA annual meeting in Dallas, by the newly created Task Force on Gay Liberation The ceremony, attended by only 9 people, recognized Patience and Sarah, a historical novel by Alma Routsong, which had been self-published by Routsong in 1969. A "grassroots acknowledgment" of GLBT publishing, there were "only a handful" of books to consider annually. The ALA officially started granting the award in 1986, and by 1995, there were more than 800 books considered for the award.In 2002, the awards, then two, were jointly named after the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots as well as two of the founding members of the TFGL, Barbara Gittings and Israel Fishman.
Award name and categories
- 1971–1986 Gay Book Award
- 1987–1989 Gay and Lesbian Book Award
- 1990–1993 Gay and Lesbian Book Award
- 1994–1998 Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Book Award
- 1999–2001 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Book Award
- 2002–2010 Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award.
- 2010–present Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award, the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award, and the Stonewall Book Award-Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award.