Akwaeke Emezi, The Gerald Kraak Anthology on Lambda Literary Awards 2020 shortlists.

Akwaeke Emezi’s Pet, and the anthology The Heart of the Matter: The Gerald Kraak Anthology Volume III are on the Lambda Literary Awards 2020 shortlists announced on March 10, 2020. Also featuring are novels by Marlon James and Nicole Dennis-Benn.

The Lambda Literary Awards, or the “Lammys,” as they are known are an award of Lambda Literary, the oldest and largest literary arts organization advancing LGBTQ literature in the United States. Awards are handed out in the categories of Lesbian Fiction, Gay Fiction, Bisexual Fiction, Transgender Fiction, LGBTQ Nonfiction, Bisexual Nonfiction, Transgender Nonfiction, Lesbian Poetry, Gay Poetry, Transgender Poetry, Lesbian Mystery, Gay Mystery, Lesbian Memoir/Biography, Gay Memoir/Biography, Lesbian Romance, Gay Romance, LGBTQ Anthology, LGBTQ Children’s/Young Adult, LGBTQ Drama, LGBTQ Erotica, LGBTQ Graphic Novels, LGBTQ SF/F/Horror, and LGBTQ Studies.

Previous winners of the awards from Africa include Chike Frankie Edozien for Lives of Great Men in 2018, and Chinelo Okparanta twice for Under The Udala Trees in 2016 and for Happiness, Like Water in 2014.

The categories that feature people of interest for us this year are;

Lesbian Fiction

• Cantoras, Carolina De Robertis, Knopf.
• A Generous Spirit: Selected Work by Beth Brant, Janice Gould, Sinister Wisdom & Inanna Publications.
• Mostly Dead Things, Kristen Arnett, Tin House Books.
• On Swift Horses, Shannon Pufahl, Riverhead Books.
• Patsy, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Liveright Publishing.
• A People’s History of Heaven, Mathangi Subramanian, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
• Red at the Bone, Jacqueline Woodson, Riverhead Books.
• Stay and Fight, Madeline Fitch, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

LGBTQ Anthology

• The BreakBeat Poets Volume 3: Halal if You Hear Me, Fatimah Asghar and Safia Elhillo, Haymarket Books.
• Foglifter Volume 4 Issue 2, Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, Foglifter Press.
• The Heart of the Matter: The Gerald Kraak Anthology Volume III, The Other Foundation, Jacana Media.
• Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry, Amber Dawn and Justin Ducharme, Arsenal Pulp Press.
• LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia, Jeff Mann and Julia Watts, West Virginia University Press.
• Love WITH Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, AK Press.
• Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity, Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane, Columbia University Press.
• A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969, Noam Sienna, Print-O-Craft.

LGBTQ Children’s/Young Adult

• All the Things We Do in the Dark, Saundra Mitchell, HarperTeen.
• The Grief Keeper, Alexandra Villasante, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers.
• Hazel’s Theory of Evolution, Lisa Jenn Bigelow, HarperCollins.
• Hurricane Season, Nicole Melleby, Algonquin Young Readers.
• The Meaning of Birds, Jaye Robin Brown, HarperTeen.
• Pet, Akwaeke Emezi, Make Me a World.
• Pride Colours, Robin Stevenson, Orca Book Publishers.
• Wilder Girls, Rory Power, Delacorte Press

LGBTQ Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror

• Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James, Riverhead Books.
• The Deep, Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes, Gallery / Saga Press.
• False Bingo, Jac Jemc, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon, Bloomsbury Publishing.
• The Rampant, Julie C. Day, Aqueduct Press.
• A Spectral Hue, Craig Laurance Gidney, Word Horde.
• Stories to Sing in the Dark, Matthew Bright, Lethe Press.
• Wake, Siren, Nina MacLaughlin, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The winners will be celebrated in a ceremony in New York, USA on Monday, June 8.