Below, please find the shortlist finalists for the 36th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. — Samantha Allen, Senior Culture Editor
Lesbian Fiction
Big Swiss — Jen Beagin (Scribner)
Biography of X — Catherine Lacey (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Organ Meats — K-Ming Chang (One World)
Our Hideous Progeny — C E McGill (HarperCollins Publishers)
Pomegranate — Helen Elaine Lee (Atria Books)
Gay Fiction
American Scholar — Patrick E. Horrigan (Lethe Press)
Blackouts — Justin Torres (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Brother & Sister Enter the Forest: A Novel — Richard Mirabella (Catapult)
Family Meal — Bryan Washington (Penguin Random House / Riverhead Books)
I Will Greet the Sun Again — Khashayar J. Khabushani (Hogarth Books)
Bisexual Fiction
All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel — Ruth Madievsky (Catapult)
Endpapers — Jennifer Savran Kelly (Algonquin Books)
Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen — Sarah James (Sourcebooks)
Natural Beauty — Ling Ling Huang (Penguin Random House / Dutton)
Old Enough — Haley Jakobson (Penguin Random House / Dutton)
Transgender Fiction
Bellies —Nicola Dinan (Hanover Square Press)
Girlfriends — Emily Zhou (LittlePuss Press)
The Rage Letters — Valérie Bah; translator Kama La Mackerel (Metonymy Press)
Trash — Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny (Deep Vellum)
Wild Geese — Soula Emmanuel (Feminist Press)
Bisexual Nonfiction
Bisexual Men Exist: A Handbook for Bisexual, Pansexual and M-Spec Men — Vaneet Mehta (Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto — Zachary Zane (Abrams Image)
Creep: Accusations and Confessions — Myriam Gurba (Avid Reader Press)
Crying Wolf — Eden Boudreau (Book*hug Press)
Nimrods: a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir — Kawika Guillermo (Duke University Press)
Transgender Nonfiction
Love and Money, Sex and Death — McKenzie Wark (Verso Books)
Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary — Miss Major and Toshio Meronek (Verso)
On Community — Casey Plett (Biblioasis)
Tar Hollow Trans: Essays — Stacy Jane Grover (University Press of Kentucky)
Transland: Consent, Kink, and Pleasure — Mx. Sly (Arsenal Pulp Press)
LGBTQ+ Nonfiction
Black on Black: On Our Resilience and Brilliance in America — Daniel Black (Harlequin Trade Publishing / Hanover Square Press)
Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City — Elyssa Maxx Goodman (Harlequin Trade Publishing / Hanover Square Press)
Hi Honey, I’m Homo — Matt Baume (BenBella Books)
Otherwise— Julie Marie Wade (Autumn House Press)
Out: A Parent’s Guide to Supporting Your LGBTQIA+ Kid Through Coming Out and Beyond — John Sovec, LMFT (Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
Lesbian Poetry
Ardor — Alyse Knorr (Gasher Press)
Because You Were Mine — Brionne Janae (Haymarket Books)
Couplets — Maggie Millner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Dream of Xibalba —Stephanie Adams-Santos (Orison Books)
Teeter — Kimberly Alidio (Nightboat Books)
Gay Poetry
Hard Drive — Paul Stephenson (Carcanet Press)
Homeland of My Body: New and Selected Poems — Richard Blanco (Beacon Press)
Love(ly) Child — Emanuel Xavier (Rebel Satori Press)
Trace Evidence — Charif Shanahan (Tin House)
What We Lost in the Swamp — Grant Chemidlin (Central Avenue Poetry)
Bisexual Poetry
A Film in Which I Play Everyone — Mary Jo Bang (Graywolf Press)
Desire Museum — Danielle Cadena Deulen (BOA Editions)
Ephemera — Sierra DeMulder (Button Poetry)
Good Grief, the Ground — Margaret Ray (BOA Editions)
Impersonal Rainbow & The Bisexual Purge — Paul Killebrew (Canarium Books)
Transgender Poetry
Hood Vacations — Michal ‘MJ’ Jones (Black Lawrence Press)
Portraits as Animal: Poems — Victoriano Cárdenas (Bloomsday Literary)
Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco —K. Iver (Milkweed Editions)
Taking to Water — Jennifer Conlon (Autumn House Press)
Transitory — Subhaga Crystal Bacon (BOA Editions)
LGBTQ+ Poetry
Lanternfly August — Robin Gow (Driftwood Press)
motherworld: a devotional for the alter-life — Destiny Hemphill (Action Books)
Pig — Sam Sax (Scribner)
The Perfect Bastard — Quinn Carver Johnson (Northwestern University Press)
Toska — Alina Pleskova (Deep Vellum)
Lesbian Memoir/Biography
Hijab Butch Blues — Lamya H (The Dial Press)
Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives — Amelia Possanza (Catapult)
Suicide: The Autoimmune Disorder of the Psyche — Vi Khi Nao (11:11 Press)
To Name the Bigger Lie — Sarah Viren (Scribner)
Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters — Lynnée Denise (The University of Texas Press)
Gay Memoir/Biography
Leading Lady — Charles Busch (BenBella Books)
Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It — Greg Marshall (Abrams Press)
Mother, Nature — Jedidiah Jenkins (Convergent Books)
Reaching Ninety— Martin Duberman (Chicago Review Press )
Tweakerworld — Jason Yamas (Unnamed Press)
Lesbian Romance
A Lady to Treasure — Marianne Ratcliffe (Bellows Press)
Catch — Kris Bryant (Bold Strokes Books)
Dance with Me — Georgia Beers (Bold Strokes Books)
Love at 350° — Lisa Peers (The Dial Press)
Lucky in Lace — Melissa Brayden (Bold Strokes Books)
Gay Romance
Dionysus in Wisconsin— E. H. Lupton (Winnowing Fan Press)
Mistletoe & Mishigas — M.A. Wardell (Self-published)
The Art of Husbandry — Jay Hogan (Southern Lights Publishing / Self-published)
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen — KJ Charles (Sourcebooks)
We Could Be So Good — Cat Sebastian (Avon Books)
LGBTQ+ Anthology
2 Trans 2 Furious: An extremely serious journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies — Tuck Woodstock & Niko Stratis (Rapid Onset Gender Distro / Self-published)
A Pill for Promiscuity: Gay Sex in an Age of Pharmaceuticals — Andrew R. Spieldenner and Jeffrey Escoffier (Rutgers University Press)
Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection — Madeline Dyer; with contributions by Cody Daigle-Orians, Kat Yuen, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Rosiee Thor, Madeline Dyer, Linsey Miller, K. Hart, S.E. Anderson, Emily Victoria, Anju Imura, RoAnna Sylver, Moniza Hossain, Lara Ameen, Jas Brown, and S.J. Taylor (Page Street Publishing / Page Street YA)
Fairy Tale Review: The Rainbow Issue — Benjamin Schaefer (Wayne State University Press) Rosalind’s Siblings: Fiction and Poetry Celebrating Scientists of Marginalized Genders— Bogi Takács; with contributions by Cameron Van Sant, Celia Neri, D.A. Xiaolin Spires, Emma Alice Johnson, Hal Y. Zhang, Isha Karki, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Julian K. Jarboe, Julie Nováková, Kanika Agrawal, Laura Jane Swanson, Leigh Harlen, Lisa M. Bradley, Lydia Moon, Osahon Ize-Iyamu, Phoebe Barton, Polenth Blake, Premee Mohamed, Santiago Belluco, Stefani Cox, Tessa Fisher, Ursula Whitcher, and Vajra Chandrasekera (Atthis Arts)
LGBTQ+ Children’s Books
The Apartment House on Poppy Hill — Nina LaCour; illustrator Sonia Albert (Chronicle Books)
Door by Door — Meeg Pincus and Meridth Mckean Gimbel (Crown Books for Young Readers)
Gender Identity for Kids — Andy Passchier (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Grandad’s Pride — Harry Woodgate (Little Bee Books)
The Wishing Flower — A. J. Irving and Kip Alizadeh (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
LGBTQ Comics
A Guest in The House — Emily Caroll (First Second)
Belle of the Ball — Mari Costa (First Second)
Blackward — Lawrence Lindell (Drawn & Quarterly)
Roaming — Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)
The Chromatic Fantasy — H.A. (Silver Sprocket)
LGBTQ+ Drama
Fat Ham — James Ijames (Theatre Communications Group)
For Both Resting and Breeding — Adam Meisner (Scirocco Drama / J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing)
I Wanna Fuck Like Romeo and Juliet — Andrew Rincón (Samuel French, a Concord Theatricals Company)
Joan of Arkansas — Milo Wippermann (Ugly Duckling Presse)
the bandaged place — Harrison David Rivers (Samuel French, a Concord Theatricals Company)
LGBTQ+ Middle Grade
Dear Mothman — Robin Gow (Amulet Books)
Ellie Engle Saves Herself — Leah Johnson (Disney Hyperion)
Just Lizzie — Karen Wilfrid (HarperCollins / Clarion Books)
Matteo — Michael Leali (HarperCollins)
The Beautiful Something Else — Alden Van Otterloo (Scholastic Press)
LGBTQ+ Mystery
A Calculated Risk — Cari Hunter (Bold Strokes Books)
Don’t Forget the Girl — Rebecca McKanna (Sourcebooks Landmark)
The Good Ones — Polly Stewart (HarperCollins Publishers)
Transitory — J. M. Redmann (Bold Strokes Books)
Where the Dead Sleep — Joshua Moehling (Poisoned Pen Press)
LGBTQ+ Romance and Erotica
A Tight Squeeze: Smutty Trans and Queer Stories — laura q (Microcosm Publishing)
Chef’s Choice — TJ Alexander (Emily Bestler Books / Atria Books)
Fly with Me: A Novel —Andie Burke (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date — Ashley Herring Blake (Berkley)
The Fiancee Farce — Alexandria Bellefleur (Avon Books)
LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction
Bang Bang Bodhisattva— Aubrey Wood (Solaris)
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself: A Novel — Marisa Crane (Catapult)
The Archive Undying — Emma Mieko Candon (Tordotcom Publishing)
The Saint of Bright Doors — Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom Publishing)
The Thick and the Lean — Chana Porter (Saga Press)
LGBTQ+ Studies
Ambivalent Af inities: A Political History of Blackness and Homosexuality after World War II— Jennifer Dominique Jones (University of North Carolina Press)
Care without Pathology: How Trans- Health Activists Are Changing Medicine — Christoph Hanssmann (University of Minnesota Press)
Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America — Margot Canaday (Princeton University Press)
Sexuality and the Rise of China: The Post-1990s Gay Generation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China — Travis S. K. Kong (Duke University Press)
The Sexual Politics of Empire: Postcolonial Homophobia in Haiti — Erin L. Durban (University of Illinois Press)
LGBTQ+ Young Adult
Cold Girls — Maxine Rae (Flux)
Only This Beautiful Moment — Abdi Nazemian (HarperCollins / Balzer + Bray)
Pritty— Keith F. Miller, Jr. (HarperCollins / HarperTeen)
That Self-Same Metal (The Forge & Fracture Saga, Book 1) — Brittany N. Williams (Amulet Books)
The Wicked Bargain — Gabe Cole Novoa (Random House Books for Young Readers)
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