The 2022 Lambda Literary Awards for LGBTQ+ fiction and nonfiction were announced this week! There were 24 winners total, with special prizes awarded to several authors as well. Here are all the winning books for you to read, and all the prize-winning authors for you to check out!
Author Prize Winners
The first author prize, the Randall Kenan Prize for Black LGBTQ Fiction, went to Kalynn Bayron for the YA fantasy novel This Wicked Fate. Next, the Jeanne Cordova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction went to Aisha Sabatini Sloan for her work exploring Black queer outdoor life, Borealis. Ching-In Chen and Morgan Thomas won the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers, and Jobert Abueva was awarded the J. Michael Samuel Prize for Emerging Writers Over 50. Finally, the Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize went to Vi Khi Nao and Silas House.
Fiction Award Winners
Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie won the category Lesbian Fiction, and 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell won the award for Gay Fiction. We Want What We Want by Alix Ohlin won the Bisexual Fiction award, and Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton won for Transgender Fiction. We Want What We Want is a collection of short stories, while the other three winners are literary fiction novels.
Nonfiction Award Winners
Borealis, the essay book by Cordova Prize winner Aisha Sabatini Sloan, won Bisexual Nonfiction, while Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun Harrison won Transgender Nonfiction. The LGBTQ Nonfiction Award went to Let the Record Show by Sarah Schulman, a history of the ACT UP movement in New York from 1987-1993.
Poetry Winners
The award for Lesbian Poetry went to Tamiko Beyer for Last Days, and the Gay Poetry award was won by John Keene for Punks: New & Selected Poems. Aurielle Marie won the Bisexual Poetry award for Gumbo Ya Ya, and Mason J won the Transgender Poetry award for Crossbones on My Life.
Memoir/Biography Award Winners
The Lesbian Memoir/Biography award went to Sophie Santos, comic and host of the comedy show The Lesbian Agenda, for The One You Want to Marry (And Other Identities I’ve Had): A Memoir. Brian Broome won the Gay Memoir/Biography award for Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir, writing about Blackness and queerness while growing up in the American Rust Belt.
Romance Winners
Milena McKay won the Lesbian Romance award for The Headmistress. And the Gay Romance award went to Larry Benjamin for Excellent Sons: A Love Story in Three Acts.
LGBTQ Anthology Winner: Briona Simone Jones, Mouths of Rain
LGBTQ Children’s/Middle Grade: JR and Vanessa Ford, Calvin
LGBTQ Young Adult: A.R. Capetta, The Heartbreak Bakery
LGBTQ Drama: R. Eric Thomas, Mrs. Harrison
LGBTQ Erotica: Samuel R. Delany, Big Joe
LGBTQ Mystery: John Copenhaver, The Savage Kind
LGBTQ Speculative Fiction: Cadwell Turnbull, No Gods, No Monsters
LGBTQ Studies: Anna Lvovsky, Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life Before Stonewall
Congratulations to all the winners! Find more awesome book content right here on Bookstr.
