Lambda Literary Awards

Recently, Lambda Literary unveiled the finalists of their 2023 Lambda Literary Awards, commonly referred to as the Lammy’s or Lammy Awards. Since 1989, this organization has granted awards for LGBTQ+-centered fiction and non-fiction works. The winners are announced in June of the year following when these books were published and submitted for consideration after a judging round. What initially was an award program centered on non-fiction and literary fiction stories with a gay male perspective has changed into an event that now encompasses categories devoted to sapphic/lesbian content, bisexual works, and transgender works.

Please note: This article uses the terms ‘sapphic/lesbian’ because while the literary world is increasingly moving towards a more expansive definition of sapphism, Lambda Literary still uses ‘L’ for lesbian writing in its awards program.

Lesbian/sapphic fiction, memoir/biography, romance and poetry each have their own Lammy categories. This tends to be true for gay, bisexual, and transgender works too. Other categories are combined and presented as ‘LGBTQ+’ including comics, drama, erotica, mystery, spec fiction, YA, Middle Grades, and more.

We’re focusing on this with this post because the Lammy Awards tend to recognize more books from academia, university presses, and major publishers, more so than those from dedicated LGBTQ+ and sapphic specific small presses. Unfortunately, these authors and their works often don’t reach the sapphic reading community that frequents online platforms, sapphic bookstores and coffee houses, and other places where sapphics and sapphic friendly readers gather. They miss the chance of being bought, read, and talked about.

This year, the panel of 65 judges had their hands full when it came to deciding on the Lambda Literary Award nominees – with over 1,350 books to choose from. Eventually, five finalists were chosen in 25 categories. We’ve highlighted those specifically relating to sapphic or lesbian content for you to browse through, and also shared some of our top picks from the LGBTQ+ and bisexual genres that have more sapphic elements.

Lambda Literary Award Finalists	Category and Title	Author	Publisher
	Lesbian Fiction
	Big Girl: A Novel An extraordinary debut novel shot through with remarkable nuance and tenderness, Big Girl traces the intergenerational hungers of the profoundly lovable Malaya Clondon.	Mecca Jamilah Sullivan	W.W. Norton & Company
	Gods of Want Startling stories center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women in “a voracious, probing collection, proof of how exhilarating the short story can be” (The New York Times Book Review)	K-Ming Chang	One World
	Jawbone “Was desire something like being possessed by a nightmare?”	Mónica Ojeda, translated by Sarah Booker	Coffee House Press
	Nightcrawling  NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK • A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system.” (Tommy Orange, author of There There).	Leila Mottley	Alfred A. Knopf
	Our Wives Under the Sea: A Novel  “A deeply strange and haunting novel in the best possible way…An impressive and exciting debut novel that may leave you thinking about your own relationships in a new light.” —NPR	Julia Armfield	Flatiron Books
	Bisexual Fiction
	Meet Us by the Roaring Sea New York Times Editors' Choice 2022 An NPR Books We Love 2022	Akil Kumarasamy, Farrar	Straus and Giroux
	Mother Ocean Father Nation  A riveting, tender debut novel, following a brother and sister whose paths diverge—one forced to leave, one left behind—in the wake of a nationalist coup in the South Pacific.	Nishant Batsha	Ecco, HarperCollins
	Reluctant Immortals "For fans of Mexican Gothic, from three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a novel inspired by the untold stories of forgotten women in classic literature..."	Gwendolyn Kiste	S&S / Sage Press
	Roses, In the Mouth of a Lion: A Novel  For fans of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, an unforgettable story about female friendship and queer love in a Muslim-American community	Bushra Rehman	Flatiron Books
	Stories No One Hopes Are about Them Stories No One Hopes Are about Them explores convergences of power, privilege, and place.	by A.J. Bermudez	The University of Iowa Press
	Young Adult
	Burn Down, Rise Up  Mysterious disappearances. An urban legend rumored to be responsible. And one group of friends determined to save their city at any cost.	Vincent Tirado	Sourcebooks Fire
	Funny Gyal: My Fight Against Homophobia in Jamaica Angeline Jackson stands up to the culture of homophobia in Jamaica by sharing the story of her sexual and spiritual awakening as well as her traumatic experience of “corrective rape.”	Angeline Jackson with Susan McClelland	Durden Press Ltd
	Lakelore  Two non-binary teens are pulled into a magical world under a lake - but can they keep their worlds above water intact?	Anna-Marie McLemore, Feiwel & Friends	Macmillan Childrens Publishing Group
	The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School  A sharply funny and moving debut novel about a queer Mexican American girl navigating Catholic school, while falling in love and learning to celebrate her true self.	Sonora Reyes	HarperCollins: Balzer + Bray
	The Summer of Bitter and Sweet  A powerful story about rage, secrets, and all the spectrums that make up a person—and the sweetness that can still live alongside the bitterest truth.	Jen Ferguson	HarperCollins: Heartdrum
	Bisexual Nonfiction
	Appropriate Behavior  Premiering at Sundance in 2014, Desiree Akhavan’s acclaimed debut feature, Appropriate Behavior, introduced the indie film world to the deadpan, irreverent wit that had already won over fans of her trailblazing LGBTQ web series The Slope.	Maria San Filippo	McGill-Queen's University Press
	Never Simple: A Memoir  This gripping and darkly funny memoir “is a testament to the undeniable, indestructible love between a mother and a daughter” (Isaac Mizrahi).	Liz Scheier	Henry Holt / Macmillan
	Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy  An unprecedented exploration of polyamory and gaslighting.	Rachel Krantz	Harmony Books, Penguin Random House
	The Crane Wife  A memoir in essays that expands on the viral sensation “The Crane Wife” with a frank and funny look at love, intimacy, and self in the twenty-first century.	CJ Hauser	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
	LGBTQ+ NonFicition
	The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison  This singular history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century.	Hugh Ryan	Bold Type Books, Hachette Book Group
	LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction
	The Book Eaters An International Bestseller An NPR Best Sci Fi, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction Book of 2022 A Book Riot Best Book of 2022 A Vulture Best Fantasy Novel of 2022 A Goodreads Best Fantasy Choice Award Nominee A Library Journal Best Book of 2022	Sunyi Dean	Tor Books
	Into the Riverlands  "A delicious bonbon of a novella about stories and their unreliable narrators, who wink at their...readers fully expecting us to catch on."—The Wall Street Journal	Nghi Vo	Tor.com Publishing
	The Paradox Hotel  “Time travel, murder, corruption, restless baby dinosaurs, and a snarky robot named Ruby collide in this excellent, noir-inflected, humor-infused, science-fiction thriller.”—The Boston Globe	Rob Hart	Ballentine
	The Wicked and the Willing  Love demands sacrifice. Her blood. Her body. Even her life.	Lianyu Tan	Shattered Scepter Press
	Lesbian Poetry
	As She Appears  Paperback Only Shelley Wong's debut, As She Appears, foregrounds queer women of color in their being and becoming.	Shelley Wong	YesYes Books
	Beast at Every Threshold  Beast at Every Threshold dances between familial hauntings and cultural histories, intimate hungers and broader griefs.	Natalie Wee	Arsenal Pulp Press
	Concentrate  Courtney Faye Taylor explores the under-told history of the murder of Latasha Harlins―a fifteen-year-old Black girl killed by a Korean shop owner, Soon Ja Du, after being falsely accused of shoplifting a bottle of orange juice.	Courtney Faye Taylor	Graywolf Press
	Prelude Prelude delineates the gay female experience through a poetic reconstruction of the girlhood of Catherine of Siena, a Catholic saint who lived in 1300s Italy and disobeyed her parents by refusing marriage to devote her life to God.	Brynne Rebele-Henry	University of Pittsburgh Press
	Bisexual Poetry
	50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse This is a book of tragicomic gurlesque word-witchery inspired by the Kate Bush cosmos.	Karyna McGlynn	Sarabande Books
	Dereliction  Gabrielle Octavia Rucker's debut collection of poetry, moves through childhood and into the afterlife with poems that evoke an artful and urgent sense of the author's "insatiable wandering."	Gabrielle Octavia Rucker	The Song Cave
	Meat Lovers  Meat' is a coming of age in which pony clubs, orphaned lambs and dairy-shed delirium are infused with playful menace and queer longings.	Rebecca Hawkes	Auckland University Press
	Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes  What is illusion—a deception, or a revelation? What is a poem—the truth, or “a diverting flash, / a mirror showing everything / but itself”?	Nicky Beer	Milkweed Editions
	Lesbian Memoir/Biography
	Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place  When Neema Avashia tells people where she’s from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving “There are Indian people in West Virginia?”	Neema Avashia	West Virginia University Press
	Brown Neon A meditation on southwestern terrains, intergenerational queer dynamics, and surveilled brown artists that crosses physical and conceptual borders.	Raquel Gutiérrez	Coffee House Press
	Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness  “I will stake my reputation on you being blown away by Lost & Found.”—Anne Lamott, author of Dusk, Night, Dawn and Bird by Bird	Kathryn Schulz	Random House
	Ma and Me "A nuanced mediation on love, identity, and belonging. This story of survival radiates with resilience and hope." —Publishers Weekly	Putsata Reang	Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MCD
	Pretty Baby: A Memoir  A queer teen rebel escapes small-town Appalachia and becomes Los Angeles’s Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix in this searing and darkly funny memoir that upends our ideas about desire, class, and power.	Chris Belcher	Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
	Lesbian Romance
	Hard Pressed  For Mira Lavigne, cider is about tradition, elegance, and class.	Aurora Rey	Bold Strokes Books
	If I Don't Ask  Rebecca Keane has it all figured out.	E. J. Noyes	Bella Books
	Queerly Beloved  A people-pleasing baker tries to find her place as a bridesmaid-for-hire.	Susie Dumond	Dial Press
	Southbound and Down Rules will be broken, as well as a number of speed limits and maybe more than one heart …	K.B. Draper	K.B. Draper, LLC.
	The Rules of Forever  Public school teacher Cara Talarico is determined to pay off her student loans by the time she turns thirty-five and has sworn off everything fun to make it happen—including dating.	Nan Campbell	Bold Strokes Books
	LGBTQ Romance and Erotica
	Kiss Her Once For Me: A Novel  A festive romantic comedy about a woman who fakes an engagement with her landlord…only to fall for his sister.	Alison Cochrun	Atria Books
	Mistakes Were Made  A sharp and sexy rom-com about a college senior who accidentally hooks up with her best friend’s mom.	Meryl Wilsner	St. Martin's Griffin
	The Romance Recipe Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak. Sophie Brunet: grump in the kitchen/sunshine in the streets, took thirty years to figure out she was queer.	Ruby Barrett	Carina Adores
	LGBTQ+ Mystery
	Dead Letters from Paradise A spinster postal investigator for the Winston-Salem Dead Letter Office finds herself enmeshed in the mystery of solving who is sending undeliverable love letters to the town’s 18th-century hortus medicus.	Ann McMann	ByWater Books
	Dirt Creek Who's lying about what happened at Dirt Creek?	Haley Scrivenor	Flatiron Books
	Lavender House Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist.	Lev AC Rosen	MacMillan
	LGBTQ+ Comics
	Mamo Can Orla shoulder the responsibility of quieting her Mamo's spirit, saving her hometown, and will she have to step up as the new witch of Haresden like Mamo always wanted?	Sas Milledge	Boom! Studios
	The Greatest Thing It’s the first day of sophomore year, and now that Winifred’s two best (and only) friends have transferred to a private school, she must navigate high school on her own.	Sarah Winifred Searle	First Second