Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 12:03:50 -0400 From: lambda@clark.net (Deacon Maccubbin) Lammy Winners Announced Inclusiveness is the theme of this year's Lambda Literary Award winners. The books selected this year defy a breakdown into either gay male or lesbian, or, for that matter, into simple dichotomies of gay and straight. The winner for Gay Biography/Autobiography, for instance, is MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese, who is not a gay man, but rather a straight doctor who treated people with AIDS in rural Tennessee. Yet if Verghese's story is not that of a gay man, he relates with remarkable sympathy the livess of gay men returning home. And in the course of his experience in the Tennessee clinic, Verghese comes to see himself as having much in common with the men he treats: a foreigner, he is an outsider to the culture just as they are; even the stigma of AIDS, he believes, comes to be associated with himself as he becomes known in the community for treating the disease. Similarly, John Berendt's runaway best seller, MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL, sees gay men (and transvestites) as woven into the fabric of the whole society of Savannah, Georgia. It is the connections between lesbians and gay men that unite other winners. That, indeed, is the theme of Nonfiction Anthology award winner SISTER AND BROTHER (Joan Nestle and John Preston, ed.), and it is an important thread in Lesbian fiction winner GIFTS OF THE BODY by Rebecca Brown, which, like MY OWN COUNTRY, traces an AIDS caregiver's connections to the people she helps; in Nancy Andrews' FAMILY, a wonderful photo album of both lesbians and gay men; and the Children/Young Adult winner, AM I BLUE?, stories for young adults by both lesbian and gay (and non-gay) authors. This year's LLA winners also indicate that the community is not a shifting collection of one-shot wonders, but is nurturing a steadily maturing body of work. Winners Dorothy Allison, Alan Hollinghurst, Marilyn Hacker, Thom Gunn, Ellen Hart, Lillian Faderman, Melissa Scott and Tony Kushner are all Lammy veterans, having had earlier books that were either finalists or winners. Lesbian non-fiction winner Dorothy Allison and Gay Men's novel winner Alan Hollinghurst both having garnered Lammy's at the 1st Awards ceremony in 1989. Finally, this was the year the Lammys go international. For the first time Canadian books were eligible for a Lambda Literary Award, and a Canadian book, HER TONGUE ON MY THEORY, by the Kiss & Tell lesbian writers collective and published by Vancouver's Press Gang, is this year's small press winner. It's a fitting reminder both of the vibrant lesbian and gay publishing community north of the border, and that gay and lesbian books have become an international business. The Lambda Literary Awards winners were announced at a gala reception and banquet at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago Friday, June 2. The Lammy awards, sponsored by the LAMBDA BOOK REPORT, are held each year in conjunction with the American Booksellers Association convention. 1994 Lambda Literary Award Winners GAY MEN'S FICTION The Folding Star by Alan Hollinghurst Pantheon LESBIAN FICTION Gifts of the Body by Rebecca Brown HarperCollins LESBIAN STUDIES Skin by Dorothy Allison Firebrand Books GAY MEN'S STUDIES Gay New York by George Chauncey Basic Books GAY MEN'S BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY My Own Country by Abraham Verghese Simon and Schuster LESBIAN BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY Gertrude Stein in Words and Pictures by Renate Stendahl Algonquin Press LESBIAN POETRY Winter Numbers by Marilyn Hacker Norton GAY MEN'S POETRY Collected Poems by Thom Gunn Farrar Strauss and Giroux LESBIAN MYSTERY Small Sacrifice by Ellen Hart Seal Press GAY MEN'S MYSTERY Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt Random House LESBIAN AND GAY ANTHOLOGIES/NONFICTION Sister and Brother edited by Joan Nestle and John Preston HarperSanFrancisco LESBIAN AND GAY ANTHOLOGIES/FICTION Chloe Plus Olivia edited by Lillian Faderman Viking GAY AND LESBIAN SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY Trouble and her Friends by Melissa Scott Tor LESBIAN AND GAY HUMOR The Dyke and the Dybbuk by Ellen Galford Seal LESBIAN AND GAY DRAMA Angels in America, Part 2: Perestroika by Tony Kushner TCG LESBIAN AND GAY PHOTOGRAPHY/VISUAL ARTS Family by Nancy Andrews HarperSanFrancisco LESBIAN AND GAY CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT Am I Blue? edited by Marion Dane Bauer HarperChildren's LESBIAN AND GAY SMALL PRESS Her Tongue on My Theory by Kiss & Tell Press Gang EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD Memoir of a Race Traitor by Mab Segrest South End PUBLISHER'S SERVICE AWARD Barbara Smith Kitchen Table Press /s/ Deacon Maccubbin ======================================================== LAMBDA RISING BOOKSTORES - E-mail address: lambdarising@his.com Every Gay & Lesbian Book in Print - Videos, Music, & Gifts, Too! 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