The 25th Annual Lambda Literary Awards recently announced their winners, and among the recipients was novelist John Irving for his fiction book In One Person. I interviewed Irving about this time last year, just as the book was being released (we actually had dinner together on its release date), and he’s one of the best allies the LGBT community can claim. Starting with his character Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp, he’s addressed sexual orientation cogently and respectfully. He even has a gay son. The choice of In One Person for an award is well-deserved.
I was disappointed, though, that John Boyne’s The Absolutist — surely one of the finest novels of 2012, and one with a staggeringly smart introduction of gay issues — didn’t win its category. Ah well. But Dale Carpenter, who has contributed to Dallas Voice, did win, for his history of Lawrence v. Texas.
A complete list of winners after the jump.
Bisexual Fiction: In One Person by John Irving
Transgender Fiction: The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard edited by Tom Leger and Riley Macleod
Bisexual Nonfiction: My Awesome Place: The Autobiography of Cheryl B by Cheryl Burke
Transgender Nonfiction: Transfeminist Perspectives In and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies edited by Finn Enk
Gay General Fiction: Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Lesbian General Fiction: The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar
Gay Memoir/Biography: Fire in the Belly by Cynthia Carr
Lesbian Memoir/Biography: Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
Gay Mystery: Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery by Jeffrey Round
Lesbian Mystery: Ill Will by J.R. Redmann
Gay Poetry: He Do the Gay Man in Different Vioces by Stephen S. Mills
Lesbian Poetry: Sea and Fog by Etal Adnan
Gay Romance: Kamizake Boys by Jay Bell
Lesbian Romance: Month of Sundays by Yolanda Wallace
Gay Erotica: The Facialist by Mykola Dementiuk
Lesbian Erotica: The Harder She Comes: Butch/Femme Erotica by D.L. King
LGBT Anthology: No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics edited by JustinHall
LGBT Children’s/Young Adult: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
LGBT Fiction Debut: The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie
LGBT Drama: The Myopia and Other Plays by David
LGBT Nonfiction: Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas by Dale Carpenter
LGBT Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror: Green Thumb by Tom Cardamone
LGBT Studies: Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics by Ramon H. Rivera-Servera
Dr. James Duggins Mid-Career Novelist Prize: Nicola Griffith and Trebor Healey
Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award: Sassafras Lowery and Cater Sickels
