The 2024 Lambda Literary Awards - See the Complete List of Winners

The 36th annual Lambda Literary Awards – celebrating LGBTQ+ writers and literature – took place at Sony Hall in New York City on June 11. Drag queen, actress and activist Peppermint emceed the event. In her opening remarks, she addressed the importance of Lambda's work in light of a sharp increase in censorship of LGBTQ+ books and "attacks on libraries."

"I'm grateful [for Lambda] because a lot of the ideas and the connections that I had about the queer community that helped me form a better self-image came from me reading books," she said.

This year’s event presented awards across 26 categories and included seven special prizes for their contributions to the queer literary landscape over the past year. The special prizes included two new categories for 2024. The Denneny Award for Editorial Excellence was named after Michael Denneny, one of the first openly gay editors and founder of the first LGBTQ+ imprint at a major publication. The Pat Holt Prize for Critical Arts Writing was named in memory of Patricia Holt, the former San Francisco Chronicle book review editor who passed away in December 2022. 

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The shortlist for the awards, which included 130 finalists, was announced in March and included titles like I Will Greet the Sun Again by Khashayar J. Khabushani, Pomegranate by Helen Elaine Lee and Girlfriends by Emily Zhou, among others. 

See the full list of winners below.

LESBIAN FICTION

• Biography of X by Catherine Lacey 

GAY FICTION

• Family Meal by Bryan Washington 

BISEXUAL FICTION

• Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang 

TRANSGENDER FICTION

• Wild Geese by Soula Emmanuel 

BISEXUAL NONFICTION

• Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba 

TRANSGENDER NONFICTION

• Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary by Miss Major and Toshio Meronek 

LGBTQ+ NONFICTION

• Hi Honey, I'm Homo by Matt Baume 

LESBIAN POETRY

• Teeter by Kimberly Alidio 

GAY POETRY

• Trace Evidence by Charif Shanahan 

BISEXUAL POETRY

• Desire Museum by Danielle Cadena Deulen 

TRANSGENDER POETRY

• Hood Vacations by Michal 'MJ' Jones 
  

LGBTQ+ POETRY

• The Perfect Bastard by Quinn Carver Johnson 

LESBIAN MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

• Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives by Amelia Possanza

GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

• Tweakerworld by Jason Yamas

LESBIAN ROMANCE

• Dance with Me by Georgia Beers 

GAY ROMANCE

• We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian 

LGBTQ+ ANTHOLOGY

• 2 Trans 2 Furious: An extremely serious journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies by Tuck Woodstock & Niko Stratis

LGBTQ+ CHILDREN'S BOOKS

• The Apartment House on Poppy Hill by Nina LaCour; illustrator Sonia Albert 

LGBTQ COMICS

• A Guest in The House by Emily Caroll 

LGBTQ+ DRAMA

• Fat Ham by James Ijames 

LGBTQ+ MIDDLE GRADE

• Dear Mothman by Robin Gow 

LGBTQ+ MYSTERY

• A Calculated Risk by Cari Hunter

LGBTQ+ ROMANCE AND EROTICA

• A Tight Squeeze: Smutty Trans and Queer Stories by laura q

LGBTQ+ SPECULATIVE FICTION

• I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself: A Novel by Marisa Crane

LGBTQ+ STUDIES

• The Sexual Politics of Empire: Postcolonial Homophobia in Haiti by Erin L. Durban 

LGBTQ+ YOUNG ADULT

• Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian 

RANDALL KENAN PRIZE FOR BLACK LGBTQ FICTION

• Liv Little

JEANNE CÓRDOVA PRIZE FOR LESBIAN/QUEER NONFICTION

• Stephanie Davies

JUDITH A. MARKOWITZ AWARD FOR EXCEPTIONAL NEW LGBTQ WRITERS

• Federico Erebia
• River 瑩瑩 Dandelion

JIM DUGGINS, PHD OUTSTANDING MID-CAREER NOVELIST PRIZE

• K.M. Soehnlein
• Dr. Zelda Lockhart

THE J. MICHAEL SAMUEL PRIZE FOR EMERGING WRITERS OVER 50

• Paul Festa

THE DENNENY AWARD FOR EDITORIAL EXCELLENCE

• Dr. Remi Recchia

THE PAT HOLT PRIZE FOR CRITICAL ARTS WRITING 

• Elizabeth Hoover

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