The 28th annual Triangle Awards, honoring the best LGBT fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published in 2015, as well as the year's best trans and gender-variant literature, will be presented on April 21, 2016, at the Tishman Auditorium of the New School's University Center building ( 63 Fifth Avenue in New York City ) at 7 p.m. The ceremony is free and open to the public, with a reception to follow. For more information and a full listing of finalists, please visitpublishingtriangle.org .
The Publishing Triangle, the association of lesbians and gay men in publishing, began honoring a gay or lesbian writer for his or her body of work a few months after the organization was founded in 1989, and has now partnered with the Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards to present an impressive array of awards each spring.
Eloise Klein Healy is the 2016 recipient of the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, named in honor of the legendary editor of the 1970s and 1980s. She is the author of eight books of poetry—including Passing, a finalist in 2003 for the Publishing Triangle's Audre Lorde Award—and three spoken word recordings, and she was named the first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2012. The founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles, Healy is now Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing Emerita there. She also directed the Women's Studies Program at California State University Northridge and taught in the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman's Building in Los Angeles. She is the founding editor of Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press specializing in the work of lesbian authors. A Wild Surmise: New & Selected Poems & Recordings is her latest book. The Bill Whitehead Award is given to a woman in even-numbered years and to a man in odd years, and the winner receives $3000.
For the first time, The Publishing Triangle will present an award for excellence in trans and gender-variant literature. Carol Rosenfeld, the chair of the group, said, "We are excited about this opportunity to honor important works by trans or gender-variant writers. We hope that our new award will help increase readership for and appreciation of this fast-growing field." Works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are eligible for this new prize, which carries a prize of $1000.
Finalists for the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson ( Graywolf Press )
Debridement, by Corrina Bain ( Great Weather for Media )
The Middle Notebookes, by Nathana�l ( Nightboat Books )
Trans/Portraits: Voices from Transgender Communities, by Jackson Wright Schultz ( Dartmouth College Press )
The Publishing Triangle began giving the Shilts-Grahn awards for nonfiction in 1997. Each winner receives $1000. The Judy Grahn Award honors the American writer, cultural theorist and activist ( b. 1940 ) best known for The Common Woman ( 1969 ), Another Mother Tongue ( rev. ed., 1984 ), and A Simple Revolution ( 2012 ). It recognizes the best nonfiction book of the year by or about lesbians, bisexual women, and/or trans women, or that has a significant influence upon the lives of queer women.
Finalists for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha ( Arsenal Pulp Press )
The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, by Lillian Faderman ( Simon and Schuster )
Honor Girl, by Maggie Thrash ( Candlewick Press )
"No One Helped": Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy, by Marcia M. Gallo ( Cornell University Press )
Ms. Piepzna-Samarasinha is also a finalist for this year's Audre Lorde Award, for her poetry collection Bodymap. Lillian Faderman is a past winner of the Judy Grahn Award, for Naked in the Promised Land ( 2004 ), as well as a recipient of the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. Ms. Gallo was a finalist for this award in 2007, for Different Daughters.
The Randy Shilts Award honors the journalist whose groundbreaking work on the AIDS epidemic for the San Francisco Chronicle made him a hero to many in the community. Shilts ( 1951—1994 ) was the author of The Mayor of Castro Street, And the Band Played On, and Conduct Unbecoming. This award recognizes the best nonfiction book of the year by or about gay men, bisexual men, and/or trans men or that has a significant influence upon the lives of queer men.
Finalists for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction
Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage, by Barney Frank ( Farrar, Straus and Giroux )
A House in St. John's Wood: In Search of My Parents, by Matthew Spender ( Farrar, Straus and Giroux )
It's Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia, and Winning True Equality, by Michelangelo Signorile ( Houghton Mifflin Harcourt )
Visions and Revisions: Coming of Age in the Age of AIDS by Dale Peck ( Soho Press )
Mr. Peck was a finalist for this award in 2004, for What We Lost.
The Publishing Triangle established its poetry awards in 2001. Each winner receives $500. The Audre Lorde Award honors the American poet, essayist, librarian, and teacher. Lorde ( 1934—1992 ) was nominated for the National Book Award for From a Land Where Other People Live and was the poet laureate of New York State in 1991. She received the Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement shortly before her death. Among her other sixteen books are Zami ( 1982 ) and A Burst of Light ( 1989 ).
Finalists for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry
Bodymap, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha ( Mawenzi House/TSAR )
Fanny Says, by Nickole Brown ( BOA Editions )
Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life, by Dawn Lundy Martin ( Nightboat Books )
No Confession, No Mass, by Jennifer Perrine ( University of Nebraska Press )
Ms. Piepzna-Samarasinha is also a finalist for this year's Judy Grahn Award, for her memoir Dirty River. Ms. Perrine was a finalist for the Audre Lorde Award in 2008, for The Body Is No Machine.
The Thom Gunn Award honors the British poet Thom Gunn ( 1929—2004 ), who lived in San Francisco for much of his life. Gunn was the author of The Man with Night Sweats ( 1992 ) and many other acclaimed volumes. In its first four years, this award was known as the Triangle Award for Gay Poetry, and Mr. Gunn himself won the very first such award, in 2001, for his Boss Cupid.
Finalists for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry
Boy with Thorn, by Rickey Laurentiis ( University of Pittsburgh Press )
Chord, by Rick Barot ( Sarabande Books )
Farther Traveler, by Ronaldo V. Wilson ( Counterpath Press )
The Spectral Wilderness, by Oliver Bendorf ( Kent State University Press )
Mr. Wilson won this award in 2010 for his Poems of the Black Object.
The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, first presented in 2006, is named in honor of Edmund White, the esteemed novelist and man of letters who won the very first Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1989. The Edmund White Award celebrates the future of LGBT literature by awarding a prize to an outstanding first novel or story collection. The winner receives $1000.
Finalists for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
Blue Talk and Love, by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan ( Riverdale Avenue Books )
Bright Lines, by Tanwi Nandini Islam ( Penguin Books )
Hotel Living, by Ioannis Pappos ( Harper Perennial )
One Hundred Days of Rain, by Carellin Brooks ( BookThug )
The Ferro Grumley Literary Awards, Inc., was established in 1988 to recognize, promote excellence in, and give greater access to fiction writing from lesbian and gay points of view. To honor the memory of authors Robert Ferro ( The Blue Star, Second Son, etc. ) and Michael Grumley ( Life Drawing, etc. ), life partners who both died that year of AIDS, the group gave two awards, one for lesbian fiction and one for gay fiction, from 1990 through 2008. Starting in 2009, a single award, The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction, has been presented; it is bestowed by a specially constituted panel of judges selected from throughout the United States and Canada, from the arts, media, publishing, bookselling, and related fields. The winner receives $1000.
Finalists for The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction
After the Parade, by Lori Ostlund ( Scribner )
JD, by Mark Merlis ( Terrace Books/University of Wisconsin Press )
A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara ( Doubleday )
A Poet of the Invisible World, by Michael Golding ( Picador )
Under the Udala Trees, by Chinelo Okparanta ( Houghton Mifflin Harcourt )
Ms. Ostlund is a past winner of the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, for her short story collection The Bigness of the World ( 2010 ). Mr. Merlis won a Ferro-Grumley Award in 1995, for American Studies.
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Christopher Street magazine is the winner of the Publishing Triangle'sLeadership Award. Created in 2002, this award recognizes contributions to lesbian and gay literature by those who are not primarily writers, such as editors, agents, librarians, and institutions. The winner receives $500.
Founded in 1976, just seven years after Stonewall, Christopher Street brought out quality gay and lesbian writing at a time when silence was still expected. The list of writers published during its nineteen years was extraordinary; the remarkable range of talent includes Edmund White, Jane Rule, Randy Shilts, Fran Lebowitz, Ntozake Shange, Quentin Crisp, Adrienne Rich, Martin Duberman, Andrew Holleran, Kate Millett, Samuel Delany, Essex Hemphill, Joanna Russ, and Tim Dlugos. It printed work by cartoonists and artists such as Roz Chast, Howard Cruse, Peter Hujar, Nicole Hollander, Mel Odom, George Dureau, and Rick Fiala. And it reviewed books by James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, Larry Kramer, Patrick White, Patricia Nell Warren, Manuel Puig, and many many others.
For its valuable work in creating and encouraging LGBT literature, The Publishing Triangle is presenting the Leadership Award to Christopher Street. Since the magazine is defunct, the award will go to its founders and editors: Charles Ortleb was the publisher and first editor; Patrick Merla followed as editor; he in turn was succeeded by Tom Steele; Michael Denneny was top advisor. Together these four men, with the help of others—including Paul Baron, Dorianne Beyer, and Rick Fiala—made an invaluable contribution to our community and culture.
On the evening before the awards ceremony, The Publishing Triangle will sponsor a reading by a select group of finalists; this event will be held at Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the bookstore inside the LGBT Community Services Center at 208 West 13th Street, Manhattan. The lineup of participating finalists who will be reading here on April 20 will be announced later. This reading, which will begin at 7 p.m., is free, and books by the readers will be sold.
