#lambda literary

[lgbtqreads]

Spotlight on: 2024 Lammy Finalists for Best Anthology

Today on the site we’re shining the spotlight on the 2024 finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Best Anthology! Anthologies are pretty near and dear to my heart, having edited five of them, and I’m thrilled to help showcase these editors, contributors, and volumes before the Lammy Awards take place on June 11th! 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing…

[tjalexandernyc]

Chef’s Choice was up for a Lammy this year and LOST! And I legitimately could not be happier.

I always think people are lying when they get all humble after something like this, but I am NOT lying, y’all. Genuinely, it was a thrill just to be short-listed for the Lambda Literary Awards.

If you haven’t gotten around to reading Chef’s Choice yet, please pick it up! Luna and Jean-Pierre will always hold a special place in my heart and, I’m told, the hearts of trans readers who saw something of themselves and their relationships in this book. Hooray for my sophomore romcom, the T4T fake dating foodie farce that got out into the world!

Today, I’m just basking in the fact that I was in a room with lots of queer talent with my hot wife on my arm. Truly wouldn’t believe it if you’d told me in 2021 this was my future.

I, for one, am going to buy a copy of the winner in the LGBTQ+ Erotica & Romance category, Laura Q’s A Tight Squeeze: Smutty Trans and Queer Stories. In my opinion, the correct book took home the award. Erotica has always been a cornerstone of queer literature and it makes my heart happy seeing it get its flowers. I definitely encourage you to check out the short list to see all the titles that were up for awards this year. What a slate! Although I’m still confused why the Lammys structure their categories the way they do. I find it really strange to have what is essentially a category for LGBTQ+ Erotica & BTQ+ Romance while the Big L and Big G are off doing their own thing in Romance categories, but maybe that’s just me. Anyhoo!

I was not expecting to win an award but I have anxiety so here is the acceptance speech I had in my pocket, reproduced with only slight editing for you.

I want to thank my wife, without whom none of my books would exist; my agent Larissa Melo Pienkowski; Dana, my first reader and lifelong friend; Lara Jones, my editor at Atria, and the entire Atria team. Any accolades this book receives is a reflection of their dedication to the bit. Having a trans love story celebrated in this moment is meaningful because this is a moment when politics and police and policies are coalescing around the idea that trans lives are worthless. That we are disposable. And it is a moment where those same or similar forces are saying Palestinian lives are worthless, are disposable. These two things, and many other injustices besides, are forever linked in my mind because there is no trans liberation, queer liberation, any liberation, until there is complete liberation. Trans rights now, and in the same breath, in the same moment, free, free Palestine.

This Pride I am asking you to please donate to Gaza Funds and do what you can to protest this genocide.

One last thing! Triple Sec, my poly romcom set in the glamorous world of high-class cocktail bars, is out now and I am still on tour! If you’re in Brooklyn, Philly, or online there’s an event for you. Come on out, we’ll get a drink, have a few laughs, etc. Byeeeee sluts 😘

[ilikereadingactually]

Emerging!

i've been quiet here for a bit, because for the last few weeks i've been prepping for and then attending the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices as a 2024 Fellow in the speculative fiction cohort!

(this is me reading from the first draft of a short story, part of the Fellows reading series that ended each workshop day. i think the recording is going up on Lambda's YouTube eventually!)

i've been sitting here all evening trying to figure out what to say about it. there are so many things i want to get across! like what a huge opportunity this was for me when, as a single queer still living mostly paycheck to paycheck, so many writing workshops are out of reach financially and in time commitment. and what an enormous privilege and relief it was to come into a space where no part of my identity and how it informs my writing would have to be painfully explained!

(i'm a fidgeter, so i started this blanket at the beginning of the week to help me focus, and this is where it stood yesterday! love having tangible evidence of time and thought well-spent)

also there's something truly beautiful about the minds of spec fic writers; gathering with my cohort every day, getting to read their work and hear their insights under the glorious leadership of @charliejaneanders, was one of the most energizing and genuinely brain-altering experiences i've ever had. i tried to take a rest and recovery weekend after the closing ceremony yesterday afternoon, but instead i had to send myself multiple emails from bed at 4 in the morning because my brain wouldn't stop whirring with thoughts about how to incorporate this piece of advice or that incisive question, and how to unstick myself from the brain muck i've felt mired in for months.

(the working version of the manuscript i workshopped, probably a novella, now with sections in the handy dandy outline for feedback from my cohort and from Charlie Jane. i don't outline plot really, but somehow i live by the Google Docs outline feature anyway)

so! the Retreat is over and the lonely part of the work recommences, except now i am buzzing with renewed confidence and buoyed by the support and ongoing community of my cohort. i still have to Do the Work, even when i'm tired or the day has been long, but i feel surer now that my work has value and that i have the capacity to continue it. i'm honestly more grateful than i can say.

[rasheednewsonauthor]

The 2024 Lambda Literary award nominations came out yesterday, and these are some of my favorite books from the illustrious list of nominees.

Congrats to all of these talented writers!

[quinnandersonwrites]

My book, Are You Kitten Me, is up for a LAMBDA literary award. We find out tomorrow if I'm a finalist! Please cross your fingers and toes for me. It would seriously be an honor just to be nominated, especially for a silly kitten book. ;)

Here's a picture of Meatball to imbue this post with a little extra luck:

[peonybookblog]

And here are the Lammy finalists for bisexual poetry! Available for purchase through my Bookshop affiliate links below save for Impersonal Rainbow & The Bisexual Purge, which links to the publisher (but was sold out as of April 4, 2024).

A Film in Which I Play Everyone | Desire Museum | Ephemera | Good Grief, the Ground | Impersonal Rainbow & The Bisexual Purge

[booksinpiles]

I’m always looking for new lgbtqia+ titles. These ones are courtesy of Lambda Literary.

[bandfrmlyf]

Huge list of fantasy and science fiction books with lesbian characters!

Made by Kuropup from Reddit

[melgillman]

Other Ever Afters just got nominated for a Lambda Literary Award!!! In some absolutely stellar company, too -- I've read all the nominees here and absolutely recommend them. Congrats to all!!!

[nothingunrealistic]

:)

[smashpages]

‘A Guest in the House,’ ‘Blackward’ among the nominees for the 2024 Lambda Literary Awards

The annual awards recognize LGBTQ+ books, poetry, comics and more.

[rasheednewsonauthor]

I am thrilled to be part of the faculty for the Lambda Literary 2024 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices!

Applications for participants open on October 30. It is going to be a phenomenal experience. Good luck to all who apply!

[ilikereadingactually]

How it's going

HEY EXCITING NEWS!!

i've been accepted to the 2024 Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ voices!! in the speculative fiction cohort, TAUGHT BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS! i may just faint away

super pumped to workshop the beginning of what i think will be a novel, in a group of other queer writers!! i haven't been in a writing workshop since probably 2004, so i'm looking forward to working those muscles again.

i'm also fundraising for my tuition and would appreciate contributions and signal boosts! this is not really the logical blog to link it to because i haven't been posting here that long, but i try to keep my fannish spaces and my real name disconnected, so. if you know, you know. *ostentatious wink*

[jedusaur]

good things this week:

my BOY my GUY my MAN Joey Daccord had to step up and play two games for the Kraken this week and he did SO GOOD Y'ALL! it was unexpected on two levels, first that it would be him getting the callup instead of Driedger and second that he would actually get the start over Jones, and he made the absolute most of the opportunity—one of the postgame talking heads was a bit of an ass about the first one because he let in four, but Hakstol understood the circumstances (one extremely weird double bounce no goalie could have done anything about, two 6-on-5 situations our guys were not defending well) and sang his praises, and we won anyway. then the second one we lost in a shootout, but the only one he let in during regulation was a rebound off a killer initial save and then he went absolute beast mode in OT, just unbelievable. there's always gonna be a Mike Smith-shaped hole in my soul, but Daccord obviously idolized the guy when he was at Arizona State and plays so much like him that watching him really feels a little like coming home <3

really enjoyed this week's Ted Lasso ep, especially (spoiler warning) the part where Jamie sees Roy and Keeley leaving in two different directions and it's set up to make you think he's gonna go after Keeley to hit on her now that she's single again but instead HE GOES AFTER ROY to ineptly attempt empathy and hugs <333

listened to Debby Friday's debut album four times yesterday and three times so far today, I am so so so so into it

after some disappointing incidents with NHL pride nights, something cool happened with my local junior league team, the Thunderbirds—they didn't have an official pride night planned this season, so the fans just... made one happen themselves! the T-Birds have the only out gay player in the WHL, Luke Prokop, and EVERY SINGLE PLAYER used rainbow stick tape during warmups for this UNOFFICIAL pride night in support of their teammate, AND some of them kept the tape during the game. which, listen, I use Pride tape myself, but only on parts of the stick I don't have to handle the puck with, because real talk it is some crappy-ass tape, and any serious hockey player would know that just from touching it, so these guys were basically saying that supporting their teammate was more important to them than being good at hockey, and I just have a whole lot of feelings okay

Dallas has a goalie named Jake Oettinger whose nickname is Otter and he has lil cartoon otters painted on his goalie mask, which delighted both rocket bae and my mom (both big otter fans)

I started explaining what was going on during a Kraken game to Steph and she was like "I understood the goalie interference part" I'm so proud <3

I cut my hair and it feels very nice to not have all that shagginess on my neck

got two of the other Lammy-nominated anthologies from the library and they're both so impressive! (also both extremely different from each other and from Xenocultivars, doesn't really seem fair to compare us all tbh, but I guess that's just how it goes with awards)

rearranged my room to bring in a comfy chair and in the process found the fucking laptop I was 100% convinced must have gotten stuck in with rocket bae's stuff in storage because I had looked absolutely everywhere, including the place it actually was at least 3 times *eyeroll* but it has been found, hallelujah

made salted millionaire's shortbread and I'm gonna go bring some to a few local friends sometime this weekend, love sharing food with my people :)

[peonybookblog]

Check out the Lammy finalists for gay poetry at the Bookshop affiliate links below!

Hard Drive | Homeland of My Body | Love(ly) Child | Trace Evidence | What We Lost in the Swamp