2011 Lambda Literary Awards

The results are in for the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards celebrating the best in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender fiction and nonfiction. Here are some of the winners you can find in the library's collection.

Transgender - Fiction

Holding Still for as Long as Possible
by Zoe Whittall

"What is it like to grow into adulthood with the "war on terror" as your defining political memory, with SARS and Hurricane Katrina as your backdrop? In this robust, elegantly plotted, and ultimately life-affirming novel, Zoe Whittall presents a dazzling portrait of a generation we've rarely seen in literature -- the twenty-five-year olds who grew up on anti-anxiety meds, text-messaging each other truncated emotional reactions, unsure of what's public and what's private" - publisher


LGBT Children's/Young Adult

Wildthorn
by Jane Eagland

"Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor`s daughter. But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labelled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key..." - publisher


LGBT Nonfiction

King Kong Theory
by Virginie Despentes

"With humor, rage, and confessional detail, Virginie Despentes—in her own words, "more King Kong than Kate Moss"—delivers a highly charged account of women's lives today. She explodes common attitudes about sex and gender, and shows how modern beauty myths are ripe for rebelling against. Using her own experiences of rape, prostitution, and working in the porn industry as a jumping-off point, she creates a new space for all those who can't or won't obey the rules." - publisher


Lesbian Debut Fiction

Sub Rosa
by Amber Dawn

"In this stunning debut novel, Amber Dawn subverts and transgresses the classic hero's quest adventure to create a dark post-feminist vision not for the faint of heart. Sub Rosa's reluctant heroine is known as "Little," a teenaged runaway unable to remember her real name; in her struggle to get by in the world, she stumbles upon an underground society of ghosts and magicians, missing girls and would-be johns: a place called Sub Rosa. Not long after she is initiated into this family of magical prostitutes, Little is called upon to lead Sub Rosa through a maze of feral darkness, both real and imagined―a calling burdened with grotesque enemies, strange allies, and memories from a foggy past." - publisher

Lesbian Mystery

Fever of the Bone
by Val McDermid

"In Fever of the Bone, Val introduces Tony Hill’s most twisted adversary to date -- a killer with a shopping list of victims, a killer unmoved by youth and innocence, a killer driven by the most perverted of desires. The murder and mutilation of teenager Jennifer Maidment is horrific enough on its own. But it’s not long before Tony realizes it’s just the start of a brutal and ruthless campaign to target an apparently unconnected group of young people. Struggling with the newly awakened ghosts of his own past and desperate for distraction in his work, Tony battles to find the answers that will give him personal and professional satisfaction in his most testing investigation yet." - publisher


Gay Memoir/Biography

Secret Historian: the life and times of Samuel Steward, professor, tattoo artist and sexual renegade
by Justin Spring

"Drawn from the secret, never-before-seen diaries, journals, and sexual records of the novelist, poet, and university professor Samuel M. Steward, Secret Historian is a sensational reconstruction of one of the more extraordinary hidden lives of the twentieth century. An intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder, Steward maintained a secret sex life from childhood on, and documented these experiences in brilliantly vivid (and often very funny) detail." - publisher