2004 Lambda Literary Award Finalists

[susanstinson]

final_girl and desayunoencama made the list, and so did my publisher, Firebrand Books! I've got a ton of things to say (which follow), but decided you'd probably rather read the list first ...

Lesbian Fiction
1. And Then They Were Nuns - Susan J. Leonardi - Firebrand Books
2. Southland - Nina Revoyr - Akashic Books
3. The Way the Crow Files - Anne-Marie MacDonald - Harper Collins
4. This Wild Silence - Lucy Jane Bledsoe - Alyson Pub
5. What Night Brings Carla Trujillo - Curbstone Press

Gay Men's Fiction
1. Beijing Philip Gambone - Un. Of Wisconsin
2. Lives of the Circus Animals - Christopher Bram - William Morrow
3. The Book of Salt - Monique Truong - Houghton Mifflin
4. War Against the Animals - Paul Russell - St. Martin's Press
5. Where the Boys Are - William J. Mann - Kensington

Lesbian Poetry
1. Embers - Terry Wolverton - Red Hen Press
2. Final Girl - Daphne Gottlieb - Soft Skull Press
3. Swirl - Susan McCabe - Red Hen Press
4. The Beautiful - Michelle Tea - Manic D Press
5. The Dirt She Ate - Minnie Bruce Pratt - Un. Of Pittsburgh

Gay Men's Poetry
1. Middle Earth - Henri Cole - FSG
2. Otherhood: Poems - Reginald Shepherd - Un. Of Pittsburgh
3. Saying the World - Peter Pereira - Copper Canyon
4. Sky Lounge - Mark Bibbins - Graywolf Press
5. The Healing Art - Rafael Campo - W.W. Norton

Lesbian Mystery
1. Cry Havoc - Baxter Clare - Bella Books
2. Damn Straight - Elizabeth Sims - Alyson
3. Epitaph for an Angel - Lauren Maddison - Alyson
4. Owl of the Desert - Ida Swearingen - New Victoria
5. The Woman Who Found Grace - Bett Reece Johnson - Cleis Press

Gay Men's Mystery
1. Blind Eye - John Morgan Wilson - St. Martin's Minotaur
2. Bourbon Street Blues - Greg Herren - Kensington
3. Dead Egotistical Morons - Mark Richard Zubro - St. Martin's Minotaur
4. It Takes Two - Elliott Mackle - Alyson Pub
5. Wearing Black to White Party - David Stukas - Kensington

Fiction Anthologies
All I Want for Christmas - Jon Jeffrey, Chris Kenry, William J. Mann, Ben
Tyler - Kensington
Best Lesbian Love Stories 2003 - ed. Angela Brown - Alyson
M2M - ed. Karl Woelz - AttaGirl Press
Pulp Friction - ed. Michael Bronski - St. Martin's
Telling Moments - ed. Lydia Hall - Un. Wisconsin

NonFiction Anthology
Boyfriends from Hell - ed. Kevin Bentley - Green Candy Press
Mortal Secrets - ed. Robert Klitzman and Ronald Bayer - John Hopkins
Queer Crips - Ed. Bob Guter and Jack Killacky - Harrington Park Press
The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name - ed. Greg Wharton - Boheme Press
The Philosopher Queen - ed. Chris Cuomo - Rowman & Littlefield

Memoir/Autobiography
Cleopatra's Wedding Present - Robert Tewdwr Moss - Un. Of Wisconsin
Going the Other Way - Billy Bean - Marlowe & Company
Highsmith: A Romance - Marijane Meaker - Cleis Press
Naked in the Promised Land - Lillian Faderman - Houghton Mifflin
She's Not There - Jennifer Finney - Broadway Books

Biography
Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith - Andrew Wilson - Bloomsbury
Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle - Lois W.
Banner - Alfred A. Knopf
Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin - John D'Emilio - Free
Press
Original Youth: The Real Story of Edmund White's Boyhood - Keith Fleming -
Green Candy Press
That Furious Lesbian: The Story of Mercedes De Acosta - Robert A. Schanke -
Southern Illinois

Children's/Young Adult
Boy Meets Boy - David Levithan - Knopf Books for Young Readers
Geography Club - Brent Hartinger - HarperTempest
Gravel Queen - Tea Benduhn - Simon & Schuster
Keeping You a Secret - Julie Anne Peters - Little, Brown & Co.
Rainbow High - Alex Sanchez - Simon & Schuster

Erotica
Best Gay Erotica 2004 - ed. Richard Labonte - Cleis Press
Best Lesbian Erotica 2004 - ed. Tristan Taormino - Cleis Press
Hot and Bothered 4 - ed. Karen X. Tulchinsky - Arsenal Pulp Press
Masters of Midnight - Michael Thomas Ford, William J. Mann, Sean Wolfe, Jeff
Mann - Kensington Books
Quickies 3 - ed. James Johnstone - Arsenal Pulp Press

Humor
Chelsea Boys - Glen Hanson and Allan Neuwirth - Alyson
Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon Based Life Forms to Watch Out For - Alison
Bechdel - Alyson
Men are Pigs, But We Love Bacon - Michael Alvear - Kensington
My Big Fat Queer Life - Michael Thomas Ford - Alyson
That's Why They're in Cages, People! - Joel Perry - Alyson

Romance
Best Lesbian Love Stories 2003 - ed. Angela Brown - Alyson
Daytime Drama - Dave Benbow - Kensington
Last Summer - Michael Thomas Ford - Kensington
Maybe Next Time - Karin Kallmaker - Bella Books
They Say She Tastes Like Honey - Michelle Sawyer - Alyson

SciFi/Fantasy
Elf Child - David M. Pierce - Southern Tier Editions
Necrologue - ed. Helen Sandler - Millivres
The Red Line of Yarmald - Diana Rivers - Bella Books
The Substance of God - Perry Brass - Belhue Press
Vampire Thrall - Michael Schiefelbein - Alyson

Spirituality
Anything But Straight - Wayne Bensen - Harrington Park Press
Gay Perspective - Toby Johnson - Alyson Pub.
Gay Witchcraft - Christopher Penczak - Red Wheel/Weiser
Keeping Faith - Fenton Johnson - Houghton Mifflin
The Man Jesus Loved - Theodore W. Jennings - The Pilgrim Press

LGBT Studies
Anything But Straight - Wayne Bensen - Harrington Park Press
Love in a Time of HIV - Michael Mancilla and Lisa Troshinsky - Guilford
Publications
Queer Street - James McCourt - W.W.Norton
Strapped for Cash - Mack Friedman - Alyson
Time on Two Crosses - ed. Devon W. Carbado amd Donald Weise - Cleis Press

Drama
Forbidden Acts - Ben Hodges - Applause Theatre Books
Motifs and Repetitions - C.E. Gatchalian - The New Hogarth Press/The
Writer's Collective
Prok - Brian Drader - J. Gordon
The Band Plays - Mart Crowley - Alyson
Women in Turmoil: Six Plays - ed. Robert Schanke - Southern Illinois
University Press

Transgender/GenderQueer
She's Not There - Jennifer Finney - Broadway Books
The Drag King Anthology - eds. Donna Troka, Kathleen LeBesco, and Jean
Noble - Harrington Park Press
The Man Who Would Be Queen - J. Michael Bailey - Joseph Henry Press
Trans-gendered: Theology, Ministries and Communities of Faith - Justin Tanis
- The Pilgrim Press
Transgender Journeys - Virginia Ramey - The Pilgrim Press

Visual Arts/Photography
A Face in the Crowd - ed. John Peterson and Martin Bedogne - Matthew
Shepard Foundation
Familiar Men - Laurie Toby Edison - Shifting Focus Press
Focus on Living - Roslyn Banish - Un. Of Mass. Press
Vacation in Ibiza - Lawrence Schimel and Sebas - NBM- Eurotica
Women Seeing Women - ed. Longthar Schirmer - W.W.Norton


I'm excited that And Then They Were Nuns, the first new book from the revived Firebrand, is a finalist in lesbian fiction. Firebrand has a great long, history of publishing folks like Dorothy Allison, Jewelle Gomez, Leslie Feinberg, Alison Bechdel and a whole slew of other terrific writers, and, after changing hands a couple of times and being inactive for a few years, it's back.

Other things I think are really cool: the fabulous final_girl, otherwise known as Daphne Gottlieb, is a finalist in lesbian poetry , and so are Michelle Tea and Minnie Bruce Pratt, both amazing writers (Minnie Bruce's has also published several books with Firebrand.)

I haven't yet read The Healing Art by Rafael Campo, a finalist in gay men's poetry, but he's a doctor and a poet who writes in a way that literally makes me shiver -- he goes right to the heart of life, death, illness, tenderness, bitterness -- oh, so good!

Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D'Emilio is nominated in biography. John D'Emilio wrote me the best rejection letter I've ever gotten (he'd fought for a piece of mine, and lost), and later published a piece that I truly love that no one else would take -- I think because it was an unconventional structure. He's an amazing editor -- he coined the term lyric essay, which I often use to describe some of my work -- and a very fine writer, and he's got such a compelling subject in civil rights leader, Bayard Rustin.

I loved Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon Based Life Forms to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel so much that I could hardly stand it. (finalist in humor.) I should write a separate entry just about this.

Katie LeBesco, one of the editors of The Drag King Anthology (finalist in transgender/genderqueer) has also edited and written provocative stuff about fat.
And Laurie Toby Edison, finalist for Familiar Men in visual arts, is the photographer for the classic book of fat nudes, Women En Large. desayunoencama Lawrence Schimel is a finalist in that category, too.

Oh, and the wonderful Helen Sandler, from Diva books in London, is nominated again for editing Necrologue (SciFi/Fantasy.)

So that's who I'm rooting for...

Comments

[charlottecooper.livejournal.com]

Hey! I have a story in Necrologue. And I'm so pleased to see This Wild Silence nominated, I really loved that book.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Very cool, Charlotte. I was in the last Diva fiction anthology -- lots of good work there (and I went to London and read at the book launch, which was a financially reckless and unbelievably fun thing to do. What This Wild Silence about?

[charlottecooper.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I missed your reading! Damn!

It's about the relationship between two sisters who are keeping a really big secret about the disappearance of their younger brother, an event that happened many years before. The novel is set during a skiing trip organised by one of the sisters. It's a great book because it brings in lots of different plotlines very smoothly and skillfully. The characters are quite cranky and unlikeable, but still you feel sympathy for them. The relationship between the sisters is intriguing, I relate to it easily, having seen similar relationships at large. What can I say? I read a lot of really so-so lesbian fiction for work, but this one stood out a mile, it was very good, well-crafted, as they say.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd been hoping I might see you at that reading...

The book sounds really good. So-so lesbian fiction is so dispiriting.

[charlottecooper.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it sure is. If I never read another dreary lesbo romance or uninspiring detective story featuring closeted jocks/students/rich white thin women having incredibly boring sex with each other then I'll be a happy gal.

The book is great. I was sorry not to see Ann Wadsworth's novel 'Light, Coming Back' on the list too. That's another one I loved this past year.

[postmaudlin.livejournal.com]

amen. it's kind of weird when i read bad queer writing -- i think i'm more critical of it than bad het writing, which is unfair.

susan, thanks for the shout-out. i'm really pleased to be on the list. i'm delighted to see sf make such a strong showing, and thrilled by the company on the list.

it really is an honor just to be nominated. and my money's on minnie, if she hasn't won a lammie yet. :)

[charlottecooper.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I'm more or less critical. Bad is bad as far as I'm concerned.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

I do think that there's an extra tension around bad lesbian books for me -- maybe because having lesbian content in a book does still greatly influence how (and if) it's published, marketed, read and perceived, separate from other craft, vision and influences that go into the book. It's stultifying and constricting to have my work thrown into this pool of obvious and unsatisfying writing based on sexuality and identity; to watch beautiful, difficult, unpredictable books with lesbian content go unpublished because they don't fit some narrowly conceived marketing niche; and then to watch over and over as access to media through the increasing concentration of power in a huge pubishers defines which books people (of all orientations and genders) turn to -- hm, well that's getting way beyond bad lesbian fiction -- but, yeah, gets tiring.

But don't know why I'm going on about that when there's so much really good stuff on this list. I think Minnie Bruce probably has gotten at least one lammie before, Daphne, but from here on the sidelines, it's really great to see so much good poetry being honored. Poetry wakes me up like nothing else. Congratulations!

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

LIGHT, COMING BACK was published in 2001, so not eligible this year.

[charlottecooper.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry. I read it last year, but we don't get books until much later here in Britland.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Susan--

Thanks for posting the Finalist List, I hadn't heard anything until you and Daphne posted in my LJ. How exciting! (Good luck to you, too, Daphne!)

I'm so glad not to be nominated in the same category as Bechdel, because I wouldn't be voting for myself.

I've (blush) only read two of the finalists so far, the Bechdel and the Morgan Wilson.

It's interesting that the YA category comes entirely from mainstream houses, whereas the SF/Fantasy category is entirely from queer presses.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Fun to get to tell you -- the wonders of communication in the modern world. Karen from Firebrand sent me the list, so I thought it might be scoop material.

It's always interesting to see the balance between mainstream and small presses in all of the categories.

[teabee.livejournal.com]

especially since more than one of the books in the ya category have the same editor. can't say it makes me unhappy, though. (possible bias included).

[tuliptoe.livejournal.com]

Gravel Queen - Tea Benduhn - Simon & Schuster

I read this! And I know the author! I wonder if she knows she's on the list? I'll let her know as she is here on LJ too. Exciting! I am glad to have read a few of the finalists.

I am going to add you to my friends list! Thanks for the cool scoop!

[teabee.livejournal.com]

wowee-zowie! that is most exciting. i had NO idea!

my bet is that boy meets boy wins. everyone is loving it up big-time. alex (sanchez) and jim (howe) both mega-love it and were pushing it at a panel presentation we did in d.c. this year. though i guess alex's book is a big contender too. hell, now that i think of it, brent's book has been getting hella lots of buzz too. that makes me feel supergreat to be on such a list with these heavy-hitting favorites.

blush blush. sweeeeet.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Yay!! This is so much fun to get to (sort of) watch while folks find out that their books were nominated. Talk about vicarious thrills!

I'm adding you, in hopes of more...

[teabee.livejournal.com]

thanks :)

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

I keep replying to this and for some reason it shows up down under the next thread, so if that happens again, I'm leaving it there!

All I wanted to say is -- cool! And anarqueso knows the most fab people! I'm adding you back.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Sure enough, it happened again. The above post is in response to [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]