25th annual Lambda Literary Award winners announced

NEW YORK – The winners of the 25th annual Lambda Literary Awards were announced last night in a sold-out gala  ceremony hosted by comedienne Kate Clinton at The Great Hall at Cooper  Union. Taking place just after BookExpo America, – the book publishing  industry’s largest annual gathering of booksellers, publishers, authors, and readers – the Lambda ceremony brought together almost 500 attendees,     sponsors, and celebrities to celebrate excellence in LGBT literature and 25  years of the groundbreaking literary awards. Legendary performer Janis Ian took to  the stage at the ceremony, and the VIP After-Party at the New Museum was hosted by super-hot DJ Honey Dijon making a quarter century of the “Lammys” a night to remember.

As “mistress” of ceremonies, Clinton, for  the second consecutive year, treated the audience to her brand of topical, political comedy that The New York Times has called, “Quick-witted,     clear-spoken … a bizarrely logical, seemingly free-associating style of delivery…” Welcoming the members of the audience from out of town, she joked, “There’s fringe on the podium. That’s so gay. They thought of everything.”

New York Times columnist and bestselling author Frank Bruni, in presenting the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Literature to Augusten Burroughs said of his work, “There are memoirs but then there are people who redefined them… He’s not just a talented man, he’s a freakishly talented one.”

Later in the night a new milestone was achieved. “For the first time transgender people are accepting the award for transgender literature,” said Imogen Binnie, in a commentary during the acceptance of the award for the winner of Transgender Nonfiction for the     book Transfeminist Perspectives in and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies.

Janis Ian performed a moving rendition of her evocative song At Seventeen garnering a standing ovation.

Cherrie Moraga, Chicana writer, feminist, activist, poet, essayist, and playwright, accepted Lambda Literary’s Pioneer Award. International     bestseller John Irving, a Lambda winner for In One Person, also received LLF’s Bridge Builder Award introduced to him by Edmund White.

Finally, near the end of the ceremony, Randy Jones, original member of the Village People, took the stage to present the Lammy in Gay and Lesbian Erotica saying, “I am privileged to be in a place of such history and in front of an audience of such talent.”

“I’ve never been more proud of our community of writers.” said Tony Valenzuela, Lambda Literary Foundation executive director.  “I can’t wait to see what the next 25 years brings.”

Once again, The Lammys raised the bar for glamour with its dazzling roster of presenters from the worlds of film, television, theatre, politics, religion, sex, and, of course, literature. Gracing the stage were: Ingrid Abrams, Children’s Librarian, Brooklyn Public Library; Justin Vivian Bond, author and Tony-nominated cabaret performer; Frank Bruni, first openly gay Op-Ed columnist of The New York Times, and bestselling author; acclaimed young adult author Nick Burd; Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor; Stacey D’Erasmo, novelist and literary critic; David France, journalist and documentary film maker; Deborah Gregory, television producer and award-winning author; Nina Hartley, legendary adult film actress and feminist sex educator; Amber Hollilbaugh, activist and writer; Karla Jay, writer and professor; Randy Jones, pop star and original cowboy of Village People; James     Lecesne, actor, writer and Academy Award winning short filmmaker; Deacon Maccubbin & Jim Bennett, founders of Lambda     Rising Bookstore and of the Lambda Literary Foundation; Keith Price, stand-up comic and Sirius OUT Z radio personality; Peter Staley, AIDS and gay rights activist; Kim Stolz, fashion model, television personality, and financial executive at Citigroup; Edmund White, award-winning novelist and memorist; and Jacqueline Woodson, award-winning young adult author.

25th Annual Lambda Literary Award Winners

Bisexual (2 winners; 1 fiction, 1 nonfiction)

In One Person, John Irving, Simon & Schuster

My Awesome Place: The Autobiography of     Cheryl B, Cheryl Burke, Topside Signature

Gay General Fiction

Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Cinco

Puntos Press

Gay Memoir/Biography

Fire in the Belly, Cynthia Carr, Bloomsbury

Gay Mystery

Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery, Jeffrey Round, Dundurn

Gay Poetry

He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices, Stephen S. Mills, Sibling Rivalry Press

Gay Romance

Kamikaze Boys, Jay Bell, Jay Bell Books

Gay Erotica

The Facialist, Mykola Dementiuk, JMS Books

Lesbian General Fiction

The World We Found: A Novel, Thrity Umrigar, HarperCollins Publishers/Harper

Lesbian Memoir/Biography

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson, Grove/Atlantic

Lesbian Mystery

Ill Will, J.M. Redmann, Bold Strokes Books

Lesbian Poetry

Sea and Fog, Etel Adnan, Nightboat Books

Lesbian Romance

Month of Sundays, Yolanda Wallace, Bold Strokes Books

Lesbian Erotica

The Harder She Comes: Butch/Femme Erotica, D.L. King, Cleis Press

LGBT Anthology

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, Justin Hall – Editor, Fantagraphics Books

LGBT Children’s/Young Adult

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Simon & Schuster Books for Young     Readers

LGBT Debut Fiction

The Summer We Got Free, Mia McKenzie, BGD Press

LGBT Drama

The Myopia and Other Plays by David Greenspan, Marc Robinson, University of Michigan Press

LGBT Nonfiction

Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, Dale Carpenter, W. W. Norton & Company

LGBT Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror

Green Thumb, Tom Cardamone, Lethe Press

LGBT Studies

Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, University of Michigan Press

Transgender Fiction

The Collection: Short Fiction From The Transgender Vanguard, Edited by Tom Léger and Riley MacLeod, Topside Press

Transgender Nonfiction

Transfeminist Perspectives in and beyond Transgender and Gender Studies, edited by Finn Enke, Temple University Press

Dr. James Duggins Mid-Career Novelist Prize

Nicola Griffith

Trebor Healey

Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer  Awards

Sassafras Lowrey

Carter Sickels