What To Read

Congratulations to this years "Lammy" Award winners and finalists! In line with Lambda Literary's mission to advocate for LGBTQ writers, the awards are a way to amplify some of the best writing by queer authors today. More than 1,350 literary works were submitted this year across 25 categories of LGBTQ+ literature, so these books faced some steep competition.

Kick off your own Pride Month Reading Challenge by stocking up on these winning and finalist books! Use promotional code PRIDE23 at check-out to get 20% off these books throughout the month of June.

Bisexual Nonfiction

The Winner: Appropriate Behavior by Maria San Filippo

Finalists:

See why the title essay of this book went viral on the Paris Review website back in 2019.

"The book brings that same frank, funny gaze to bear on a succession of other doomed romances, mining them for complicated truths about how the love stories we inherit, consume and tell come to shape our experience and expectations. Think of it as rehab for road-weary romantics." —The Guardian

Carrying It Forward: Essays from Kistahpinanihk by John Brady McDonald (not carried by Tertulia)

Never Simple: A Memoir by Liz Scheier

Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy by Rachel Krantz

Lesbian Fiction

The Winner: Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang

Finalists:

Locus Magazine called this finalist for the 2022 National Book Award an "extraordi­nary literate and structurally inventive novel about female sexuality, cruelty, desire, and trauma that echoes the work of Lovecraft and Melville. A book this good, this devas­tating, should factor on all the award lists..."

Big Girl: A Novel by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

Our Wives Under the Sea: A Novel by Julia Armfield

Gay Fiction

The Winner: The Foghorn Echoes by Danny Ramadan

Finalists:

Author Andrew Sean Greer called this book "Full of joy and righteous anger, sex and straight talk, brilliant storytelling and humor... A spectacularly researched Dickensian tale with vibrant characters and dozens of famous cameos, it is precisely the book we've needed for a long time." 

Call Me Cassandra by Marcial Gala

God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu

Hugs and Cuddles by João Gilberto Noll

Lesbian Memoir/Biography

The Winner: Lost & Found: A Memoir by Kathryn Schulz

"Schulz’s mind flows beautifully on the page. While this book is classified as a memoir, it can also be read as a sweeping set of essays. Schulz’s prose is lucid and intentional, yet unexpected and compassionate. She doesn’t race to make her point and that expansive pace is what makes this book such a pleasure." —The Boston Globe

Finalists:

Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia

Brown Neon by Raquel Gutiérrez

Ma and Me by Putsata Reang

Pretty Baby: A Memoir by Chris Belcher

LGTBQ+ Speculative Fiction

The Winner: The Wicked and the Willing by Lianyu Tan

Finalists:

This thriller/sci-fi mash-up was named a best book of the year by NPR.

"In the end, The Paradox Hotel succeeds as both a mystery and as a story involving time travel. Do you want head-spinning theories on the flow of time and what it might do to people and places? You’ll find both in abundance here. But you’ll also find a resourceful, haunted protagonist pushing herself to the limit to uncover the truth behind an impossible case—one that eventually leads her to a conclusion that satisfies both of the genres from which this novel emerged." —Tor.com

Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong

Bisexual Fiction

The Winner: Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste

Finalists:

Meet Us by the Roaring Sea by Akil Kumarasamy

Mother Ocean Father Nation by Nishant Batsha

Roses, In the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman

Stories No One Hopes Are about Them by A.J. Bermudez

Transgender Fiction

The Winner: The Call-Out by Cat Fitzpatrick

Finalists:

All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From by Izzy Wasserstein

Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham

Manywhere by Morgan Thomas

Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

LGTBQ+ Young Adult

The Winner: The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes

Finalists:

Burn Down, Rise Up by Vincent Tirado

Funny Gyal: My Fight Against Homophobia in Jamaica by Angeline Jackson with Susan McClelland

Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson

LGTBQ+ Middle Grade

The Winner: Nikhil Out Loud by Maulik Pancholy

Finalists:

Answers In the Pages by David Levithan

Different Kinds of Fruit by Kyle Lukoff

Hazel Hill Is Gonna Win This One by Maggie Horne

The Civil War of Amos Abernathy by Michael Leali

LGTBQ+ Children's Book

The Winner: Mighty Red Riding Hood by Wallace West

Finalists:

A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin by Carol Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders

Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson

Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle by Nina LaCour

The Sublime Ms. Stacks by Robb Pearlman

Transgender Nonfiction

The Winner: The Third Person by Emma Grove

Finalists:

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist by Cecilia Gentili

Feral City: On Finding Liberation in Lockdown New York by Jeremiah Moss

The Terrible We: Thinking with Trans Maladjustment by Cameron Awkward-Rich

LGTBQ+ Nonfiction

The Winner: The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin by Hafizah Augustus Geter

Finalists:

And the Category Is…: Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community by Ricky Tucker

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison by Hugh Ryan

Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between by Joseph Osmundson

Lesbian Poetry

The Winner: As She Appears by Shelley Wong

Finalists:

Beast at Every Threshold by Natalie Wee

Concentrate by Courtney Faye Taylor

Prelude by Brynne Rebele-Henry

Yearn by Rage Hezekiah

Gay Poetry

The Winner: Some Integrity by Padraig Regan

Finalists:

Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones

Brother Sleep by Aldo Amparán

Pleasure by Angelo Nikolopoulos

Super Model Minority by Chris Tse

Bisexual Poetry

The Winner: Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes by Nicky Beer

Finalists:

50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse by Karyna McGlynn

Dereliction by Gabrielle Octavia Rucker

Indecent Hours by James Fujinami Moore

Meat Lovers by Rebecca Hawkes

Transgender Poetry

The Winner: MissSettl by Kamden Ishmael Hilliard

Finalists:

A Dead Name That Learned How to Live by Golden

A Queen in Bucks County by Kay Gabriel

All the Flowers Kneeling by Paul Tran

Emanations by Prathna Lor

LGTBQ+ Anthology

The Winner: OutWrite: The Speeches That Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture by Julie R. Enszer and Elena Gross

Finalists:

Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology edited by Michael Walsh

This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers by Elias Jahshan

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource by and for Transgender Communities Second Edition by Laura Erickson-Schroth

Xenocultivars: Stories of Queer Growth by Isabela Oliveira and Jed Sabin

Gay Memoir/Biography Finalists

The Winner: High-Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez

Finalists:

All Down Darkness Wide: A Memoir by Seán Hewitt

An Angel in Sodom by Jim Elledge

Boy with the Bullhorn: A Memoir and History of ACT UP New York by Ron Goldberg

I’m Not Broken by Jesse Leon

LGTBQ+ Mystery

The Winner: Dirt Creek: A Novel by Hayley Scrivenor

Finalists:

A Death in Berlin by David C Dawson

And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling

Dead Letters from Paradise by Ann McMan

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen

LGTBQ+ Comics

The Winner: Mamo by Sas Milledge

Finalists:

A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings: A Graphic Memoir by Will Betke-Brunswick

Gay Giant by Gabriel Ebensperger

Other Ever Afters by Melanie Gillman

The Greatest Thing by Sarah Winifred Searle

Lesbian Romance

The Winner: The Rules of Forever by Nan Campbell

Finalists:

Hard Pressed by Aurora Rey

If I Don’t Ask by E. J. Noyes

Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond

Southbound and Down by K.B. Draper

Gay Romance

The Winner: I’m So Not Over You by Kosoko Jackson

Finalists:

Forever After by Marie Sinclair (not carried by Tertulia)

Forever, Con Amor by A.M. Johnson

Just One Night by Felice Stevens

Two Tribes by Fearne Hill

LGTBQ+ Romance and Erotica

The Winner: Kiss Her Once For Me: A Novel by Alison Cochrun

Finalists:

A Lady’s Finder by Edie Cay

Loose Lips: A Gay Sea Odyssey by Joseph Brennan

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett

LGTBQ+ Drama

The Winner: Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) & Antigone: 方 by Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho)

Finalists:

Duecentomila by kai fig taddei

Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic by Sikivu Hutchinson

The Show on the Roof Book by Tom Ford, Music and Lyrics by Alex Syiek (not carried by Tertulia)

Wolf Play by Hansol Jung, Samuel French

LGTBQ+ Studies

The Winner: Keeping It Unreal: Black Queer Fantasy and Superhero Comics by Darieck Scott

Finalists:

Lesbian Death: Desire and Danger between Feminist and Queer by Mairead Sullivan

Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness by Marlon B. Ross

Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability by Vivian L. Huang

There’s a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life by Jafari S. Allen