How Many of These 2021 Lammy Finalists Have You Read?

Forget the Oscars—if you want to celebrate some LGBTQ+ nominations today, look no further than the 2021 Lambda Literary Award finalists, just announced!

Slated for a June 1 virtual ceremony, the awards recognize queer excellence in the written word, including Garth Greenwell, Booker Prize–winning Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, a biography of James Beard, and more. For a full list of nominees, visit Lambdaliterary.org.

How many of these have you read—and what do you want to read next?

READ: Novelist Garth Greenwell on the Eroticism of Frustration and Gratification

Lesbian Fiction

• Bestiary, K-Ming Chang, One World
• Butter Honey Pig Bread, Francesca Ekwuyasi, Arsenal Pulp Press
• Exile Music, Jennifer Steil, Viking
• Fiebre Tropical, Juli Delgado Lopera, Feminist Press
• Pizza Girl, Jean Kyoung Frazier, Doubleday

READ: Kiss Him, Hit Him, Collect Your Reward: The 2020 Booker Prize Winner, ‘Shuggie Bain’

Gay Fiction

• Cleanness, Garth Greenwell, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Neotenica, Joon Oluchi Lee, Nightboat Books
• Real Life, Brandon Taylor, Riverhead Books
• Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart, Grove Atlantic
• This Town Sleeps, Dennis E. Staples, Counterpoint Press

Bisexual Fiction

• Catherine House, Elisabeth Thomas, Custom House
• How Much of These Hills is Gold, C Pam Zhang, Riverhead Books
• Silence Is My Mother Tongue, Sulaiman Addonia, Graywolf Press
• Take a Hint, Dani Brown, Talia Hibbert, Avon Books
• You Exist Too Much, Zaina Arafat, Catapult

Transgender Fiction

• Finna, Nino Cipri, Tordotcom Publishing
• The Seep, Chana Porter, Soho Press
• The Subtweet, Vivek Shraya, ECW Press
• The Thirty Names of Night, Zeyn Joukhadar, Atria Books
• Trans-Galactic Bike Ride: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories of Transgender and Nonbinary Adventurers, Lydia Rogue, Microcosm Publishing

Bisexual Nonfiction

• Terroir: Love, Out of Place, Natasha Sajé, Trinity University Press
• The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, Emma Copley Eisenberg, Hachette Books
• This Is Major: Notes of Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope, Shayla Lawson, Harper Perennial
• The Wanting Was a Wilderness: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and the Art of Memoir, Alden Jones, Fiction Advocate
• Wow, No Thank You.: Essays, Samantha Irby, Vintage

Transgender Nonfiction

• The Black Trans Prayer Book, J Mase III & Dane Figueroa Edidi, The Black Trans Prayer Book
• Fairest: A Memoir, Meredith Talusan, Viking
• The Freezer Door, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Semiotext(e)
• Nepantla Squared: Transgender Mestiz@ Histories in Times of Global Shift, Linda Heidenreich, University of Nebraska Press
• Trans Care, Hil Malatino, University of Minnesota Press

LGBTQ Nonfiction

• All the Young Men, Ruth Coker Burks, Grove Atlantic
• An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979–1989, Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué and Erich Kessel Jr., Soberscove Press
• Forget Burial: HIV Kinship, Disability, and Queer/Trans Narratives of Care, Marty Fink, Rutgers University Press
• The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America, Josephine Donovan, University of Massachusetts Press
• The Lonely Letters, Ashon T. Crawley, Duke University Press

Lesbian Poetry

• dayliGht, Roya Marsh, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Devil’s Lake, Sarah M. Sala, Tolsun Books
• Flèche, Mary Jean Chan, Faber & Faber
• Funeral Diva, Pamela Sneed, City Lights Books
• : once teeth bones coral :, Kimberly Alidio, Belladonna Collaborative

Gay Poetry

• Fantasia for the Man in Blue, Tommye Blount, Four Way Books
• Guillotine, Eduardo C. Corral, Graywolf Press
• The Malevolent Volume, Justin Phillip Reed, Coffee House Press
• Sacrament of Bodies, Romeo Oriogun, University of Nebraska Press
• Thanksgiving: A Poem, Ted Rees, Golias Books

Bisexual Poetry

• Birthright, George Abraham, Button Poetry
• One God at a Time, Meghan Privitello, YesYes Books
• Salt Body Shimmer, Aricka Foreman, YesYes Books
• sick, Jody Chan, Black Lawrence Press
• Wild Peach, S*an D. Henry-Smith, Futurepoem Books

Transgender Poetry

• Greyhound, Aeon Ginsberg, Noemi Press
• I Love You and I’m Not Dead, Sade LaNay, Argos Books
• More Than Organs, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Sibling Rivalry Press
• The Nancy Reagan Collection, Maxe Crandall, Futurepoem Books
• Theories of Performance, Jay Besemer, The Lettered Streets Press

Lesbian Memoir/Biography

• And The Walls Come Crumbling Down, Tania De Rozario, Gaudy Boy
• The Change: My Great American, Postindustrial, Midlife Crisis Tour, Lori Soderlind, University of Wisconsin Press
• Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity, Tana Wojczuk, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
• My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, Jenn Shapland, Tin House Books
• Practicing for Love: A Memoir, Nina Kennedy, Dorrance Publishers

Gay Memoir/Biography

• A Dutiful Boy: A Memoir of a Gay Muslim’s Journey to Acceptance, Mohsin Zaidi, Square Peg
• Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America, R. Eric Thomas, Ballantine Books
• A History of My Brief Body, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Two Dollar Radio
• The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard, John Birdsall, W. W. Norton & Company
• Officer Clemmons: A Memoir, Dr. François S. Clemmons, Catapult