Lambda Literary Awards


Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the role LGBTQ+ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the best in LGBTQ+ literature.
The Lambda Literary Awards are the most comprehensive awards dedicated to LGBTQ literature in the U.S.:123 They recognize books published in English, available in the U.S., and covering LGBTQ+ themes in specific subject categories.:9 In addition to the primary literary awards, Lambda Literary also presents a number of special awards.
The awards began in 1989 with fourteen awards and prizes dedicated to gay and lesbian literature of different genres and styles. The Lammys have since grown to include bisexual and transgender literature as well as works dealing with themes on the broader LGBTQ+ spectrum. The Lambda Literary Awards are one of a number of LGBTQ literary awards. Other prominent awards include those by Publishing Triangle, the Stonewall Book Awards, and the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards.

Award categories

Lambda Literary Awards are bestowed in a number of categories across genres and identities. 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. If a category receives less than ten books in a year, it will not compete, and its books may be reassigned. Categories may also be added to recognize works pertaining to more identities along the LGBTQ+ spectrum.
Winners of the Lambda Literary Awards, also known as "Lammy Awards", are announced at an award ceremony, and given trophies but no cash prize. The Lambda Literary Foundation also publishes sponsored Special Prizes, whose winners are announced close to the ceremony and offered cash prizes.

Active awards

Awards

Special prizes

Discontinued awards

Awards are often combined with similar ones when there aren't enough recurring submissions to sustain a category, but sometimes awards are discontinued. Some categories are removed for a given year when there are too few submissions. 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.

Awards

Special prizes

History

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. There were twelve categories based on genre, subject, style, publisher, and identity, and two additional awards.:136-137 The initial awards predominantly focused on gay and lesbian literature, with many categories specifically devoted to genre work targeted at either identity.
The awards recognize books published in English and available in the U.S., so almost all finalists have been U.S. or Canadian works.: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.: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. The first award for trans literature was in 1997. 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.
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.: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.: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.: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.:190 However, the underlying requirements for the new prizes excluded bisexual and trans people. 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.
By 2012, submissions had grown to a record of 600 works from 250 publishers. The program grew to 22 awards in 2013, and 26 in 2026. 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.:138 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.:21 there had been no identity-based award categories involving race, and the only intersectional category was Spirituality.:146 A special prize, the Randall Kenan Prize for Black LGBTQ Fiction, was given annually from 2021 to 2025.
, 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.

Notable winners

Repeat winners in a category

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. 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. Marshall Thornton is the only author in the gay mystery category to have won twice for two different series.
Alison Bechdel has won four awards in the Humor category, the most by any single author, and is one of five writers to have won the award more than once. The Humor category has been discontinued.
Nicola Griffith and Melissa Scott have each won four awards in the Scifi/Fantasy/Horror category, and are two of six writers to have won the SFFH award more than once.
Sarah Waters has won three awards in the Lesbian Fiction category, for Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith, and The Night Watch in, and is one of only three writers to have won the Lesbian Fiction award more than once.
Mark Doty and Adrienne Rich have each won three awards in the Poetry category, and are two of seven poets to have won the award more than once
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.
Colm Tóibín is the only writer to have won two awards in the Gay Fiction category for The Master in 2004 and for The Empty Family in 2011.
Paul Monette is the only writer to have won two awards in the Gay Non-Fiction category, for Borrowed Time in 1989 and for Becoming a Man in 1993.

Repeat winners across categories

is the only writer to have won awards in seven different categories, having received:
  • The Editor's Choice Award for Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers in 1992
  • The Fiction Anthology Award for Chloe Plus Olivia in 1995
  • The Lesbian Studies Award for To Believe in Women in 2000
  • The Autobiography/Memoir Award for Naked in the Promised Land in 2004
  • The LGBT Arts & Culture award for Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians in 2007
  • The LGBT Non-Fiction award for Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians in 2007
  • The Pioneer Award in 2013.
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.
  • Dorothy Allison received both the Lesbian Small Press and Lesbian Fiction awards for Trash: Short Stories in 1989, and the Lesbian Studies award for Skin in 1995, as well as a second Lesbian Fiction award in 1998 for Cavedweller.
  • Edmund White received the Gay Fiction award for The Beautiful Room Is Empty in 1989, the Gay Biography/Autobiography award for Genet in 1993, and the Fiction Anthology award for Fresh Men: New Voices in Gay Fiction in 2005.
  • Michael Thomas Ford received the Humor award twice, the Romance award twice, the Gay Mystery award, and the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize in 2014.
  • 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 in 2010.
  • Michael Bronski received the Non-Fiction Anthology award for Taking Liberties in 1997, the Fiction Anthology award for Pulp Friction in 2004, and the LGBT Non-Fiction award for A Queer History of the United States in 2012.
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.
  • Nicola Griffith won the Lesbian Memoir/Biography award for And Now We Are Going to Have a Party in 2008 and the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize in 2014 in addition to her four Scifi/Fantasy/Horror awards.
  • Tristan Taormino won the Transgender Fiction award for Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica in 2012.
  • Alan Hollinghurst won the Gay Debut Fiction award for The Swimming Pool Library in 1989 and the Gay Fiction award for The Folding Star in 1995.
  • Joseph Hansen won the Gay Mystery award for A Country of Old Men in 1991 and the Gay Fiction award for Living Upstairs in 1993.
  • 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.
  • Alexis De Veaux won the Biography award for Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde in 2005 and the Lesbian Fiction award for Yabo in 2015.
  • Vestal McIntyre won the Gay Debut Fiction award for You Are Not Alone in 2006 and the Gay Fiction award for Lake Overturn in 2010.
  • 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''