“I was wondering if you had an opinion about the Lambda Literary Foundation’s decision to exclude non-GLBT authors from contention for Lambda Literary Awards?,” asks a reader. Our answer: We’re in full support of Lambda keeping things queer-only.
The Lambda Literary Awards, which adorns homo literature (including erotica!) with fancy superlatives authors can put on their book jackets, is a project of the Lambda Literary Foundation, and overseen by gay mystery scribe Christopher Rice (pictured). They “spent much of last year discussing how our literature has evolved, and the actual mission of the Foundation given the perilous place we find ourselves in with our drastically changed market conditions. We also took into consideration the despair of our own writers when a heterosexual writer, who has written a fine book about us, wins a Lambda Award, when one or more of our own LGBT writers may have as a Finalist a book that may be the only chance in a career at a Lambda Literary Award.”
And after all that ruminating? And discussing this year’s fun #amazonfail scandal? That only LGBT authors are eligible for prizes. Because we’re still discriminated against in publishing! And we deserve a category of awards unto ourselves. So even if you happen to be straight be write excellent gay fiction? Take your manuscript to some hetero-loving panel of judges, please!
Of course, Lambda isn’t positioning itself to actually rule on an author’s LGBT-ness: “We take the nomination of any book at face value: if the book is nominated as LGBT, then the author is self-identifying as part of our LGBT family of writers, and that is all that is required. There are many permutations of LGBT and they’re all welcome as that LGBT term we’ve all adopted makes clear. ”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Which means there will be plenty of fun finger waving wherein a Lambda Literary Award runner-up accuses the winner of proffering some bogus sexual identity just to score. Heh. That sounds like college.
Jason
Other than to generate clicks, does the random photo of the cute guy have anything to do with the story or did I just fall for the trick I just described?
Joey
From the article: “overseen by gay mystery scribe Christopher Rice (pictured)”
jason
I can understand disallowing books by straights that don’t deal with the lives of gay people. Indeed, that’s fair enough. The awards are defined as awards for books that deal with the lives of gay people. But to disallow a straight person – who might happen to write a great book about gay lives – is pure folly and stupidity.
Tom D Frog
Are Gay and Lesbian Authors discriminated against by mainstream publishing or is Gay and Lesbian CONTENT discriminated against.
My understanding it is the latter. If so, how can we hold our head up with pride with this blatant discrimination? I have very close and dear friends who are not gay but have a firm understanding and significant view point of what we experience through their Gay and Lesbian friendships and exposure to our culture. They viewpoint is always welcome and treasured. It is also far easier for less informed people to absorb their views.
I feel this is a stupid decision. A cookbook written by a queer can be awarded but a memoir of Matthew Sheppard written by his mother cannot be awarded? Really? No…REALLY???
T.
Chuck
My fear is that GLBT writers could now be excluded from writing hetero material. Is that the kind of world we want?
Cole
stupid. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was written by a hetero author.
Republican
Ridiculous.
bryan
I agree with Jason. What does the photo have to do with anything? Get your act together, Queerty!
Jason
@bryan: It’s a photo of Christopher Rice. He is a gay author that oversees the award.
emb
@Tom D Frog: Yeah, I’m with Tom D Frog. I believe that the Lambda Literary Awards are for GLBT content, not “Best Big Flaming Homo Author of the Year”. Sure I like it when I’m reading a novel about my peeps that’s written by a gay author, and as a rule I’d expect that such a book will be more insightful regarding GLBT life — and therefore more likely to win a prize. But I don’t believe that gay and lesbian authors are disqualified from writing about straight people, or the other way around. Sorry Queerty, but we part paths on this one–Lambda is being dopey.
AlwaysGay
The Lambda Literary Awards are doing the right thing. Gay authors are discriminated in the publishing industry to an enormous degree. Heterosexual authors even if their literature is all gay have greater mobility than gay authors simply because of their sexuality.
edgyguy1426
What is ironic here, is that this would make his own mother ineligible for the award.
Charles Merrill
@AlwaysGay: I think that is not true. David Sedaris and the author of “Running with Sissors” don’t have any difficulty getting published. Truman Capote, Tenneesee Williams the list goes on and on.
L.A. Fields
I’ve got a gay YA book coming out next month (looks like this: http://queermojo.net/index.php?id=6) and I’ve always wanted a Lambda Award. I’m unsure/not participating in my sexuality right now, but I’ve always considered myself a queer writer, since that’s all I ever write. In the event that it evens becomes a problem, would there be a form to fill out? An inquisition? Would they take my word for how I identify? Can you even accuse someone of lying about who they think they are? The Olympics can’t peg down gender with every test in the world; how is Lambda going to quantify sexuality?
Jon B
A bunch of people have claimed that gays are discriminated against in the publishing world, and I’d like to go out on a limb and COMPLETELY disagree. One of the areas that gays seem to do really well is the publishing world. Gay themes often don’t sell as well as straight themed books, but that’s because the majority of people are straight and would rather read straight themed material.
A lot of great gay male themed literature is written by straight women, so I think this decision is pretty obnoxious.
L.A. Fields
@AlwaysGay: A straight author can get published by exclusively gay presses, in gay anthologies, and while competing in gay content with ‘actual’ gay writers. Their sexuality won’t help them there, so why should it hurt them? When does the author’s sexuality come up during the query/contract phase of writing anyway? When you write gay fiction, it matters very little how you personally identify. Usually if the writing is gay, that’s all a publisher or an agent needs to know. Advertising how straight the writer is only brings up questions of authenticity, as if it should even matter for a piece of fiction. What about all the women who write fiction about gay men (notice my gender-neutered name)? Would they be disqualified from Lambda, or must they be lesbian? Or bisexual? Who cares?
dm73
It’s sad that people don’t read anymore. It’s also sadder when people of the community don’t even recognize a picture of a prominent gay author who also wrote pieces for Out magazine (which included his pic in the by-line).
As for the award, well what’s the fuss ABOUT really? Rice’s mother should be ineligible for the award. Her work now is religious based, not GLBT focussed. It’s a specific award for a specific target group. It has nothing to do with publishing other than enhancing future sales of the winner to those in the GLBT community that this author’s work is recognized as valuable in the GLBT community.
AlwaysGay
“It’s always been hard to get gay books published, and it’s as hard as ever. It’s very hard to get gay books published.” – Edmund White
“The problem is we have an awfully lot of good gay writers and very few good gay readers. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true.” – Edmund White
http://tinyurl.com/y8qhfk9
dm73
Correction, He wrote for the sister magazine,Advocate….
Jason
@Joey:
“gay mystery scribe’ is quite a title.
blackjack44
@jason: I totally agree with you
blackjack44
@Chuck: valid point chuck. the heteros will always counter attack thats why the phrase “in justice anywhere is an injustice everywhere” always rings true. Its still discrimination and its against the people youre trying to get on your side of things. Might not be a smart move Lambda
blackjack44
@Tom D Frog: Amen Tom
jonny
As long as the content is gay focused then who the hell cares who the author sleeps with. Reverse discrimniation plain and simple. When “we” are banned from a hetro event all the screamin nellies get their knickers in a twist but remember – it works both ways.
Tommy
I agree with Jason. I think it’s the content of the book, not the sexuality of the author. Does the book have gay characters and address gay people’s lives in a meaningful way?
Suppose there’s a gay writer who writes a book whose primary focus is not gay people? Should he be nominated for an award just because he’s gay? I don’t think so.
GirlyQ
This is stupid. I care about gay books being written and read, not the sexuality of whoever writes them. Unless all gay people want to stop writing any hetero novels. Good queer lit is good queer lit.
dellisonly
@Jason:
It’s a pic of Christopher Rice. Son of Anne Rice and head of the project to ban the breeders
rudy
I just checked their website because I couldn’t believe anything attached to Lambda could be so idiotic, but yes, it’s true.
“The Lambda Literary Foundation is dedicated to raising the status of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives.”
In other words, it’s not about who wrote the best LGBT book, but about the author.
Or to paraphrase the old cliché: “It’s not what you know but who you screw.”
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/
Mr. Enemabag Jones
I’m tired of straight people sticking their noses in everything we do–gay novels, gay themed films, gay porn. Piss off and do your own thing. It’s no different than white people copping black culture.
Yuki
I personally dislike this. If a straight author writes an outstanding book about LGBT people, then it should be able to win a Lambda award.
Elfwreck
This post has been included in a Linkspam roundup.
WillBFair
It’s sad. Many queers want fair treatment from the majority but can’t be fair themselves. Hopefully Lambda will rethink this one.
hephaestion
The notion of letting heteros experience some tiny amount of discrimination based on THEIR sexual orientation is delightful to me. We should provide them with as many such opportunities as possible.
D.B.
This is a really bad decision by the Lambda Literary Foundation. It’s supposed to be an award recognizing outstanding gay literature. It’s not an award recognizing outstanding gays who happen to write well.
But I guess the Foundation doesn’t see it that way. Good luck in your ridiculous new role of policing the literary world determining who is “gay” and who is not, because this decision makes it inevitable that it’s going to come to that.
Wry Bred
Believe me, both queer and straight writers of GLBT fiction have been ridiculing this decision and washing their hands of LLF in droves. The whole foundation is quickly becoming irrelevant to all authors — except, of course, those who embrace the “us against them” attitude.
Well done, Fred Phelps…uh, Chris Rice!
(By the way, I, personally, am damned sick of male authors writing female characters and female authors writing male characters and nonfuckingvampires writing about vampires and people who never lived inside Ted Bundy’s head writing about serial killers and…well, you can fill in the rest. Might take you a few years, though.)
Scot
Gee, I guess LLF really does judge a book by it’s cover! Christopher Rice is a mediocre writer, at best. He must think he can eliminate some of the competition with this stupid rule.
Don’t worry chris. So far you’re the only jack-ass I can think of who starts a book off with a 66 word sentence. [Isn’t that what editors are for?]
Jimmy
That photo of Christopher Rice is as smug as his fatuous little policy. Everybody on that foundation board probably sits around smelling each others’ farts and telling themselves have fabulous they are.
Michael
Isn’t it a bit childish and more than ignorant to deal with discrimination by discriminating? Being the victim of prejudice and discrimination does not give one the right to limit the opportunity of others, in fact, it is our opportunity to rise above that behavior and show we can treat others better than they treated us.
Solana
@jason: I agree completely.
Andrew W
Ugh, what does Christopher Rice know about literary merit? He’s much more qualified to oversee a Nepotism in Publishing award.
gomez
@hephaestion: yeah, let’s give the middle finger to our straight friends and allies, see how they feel!
@Mr. Enemabag Jones: how’s that insulated douchbaggery working for you? good yeah? winning lots of friends?
gomez
let them know: [email protected]
Charles Merrill
What about a bisexual writer currently married to the opposite sex. Would his or her book be OK. Where do you draw the line? Do they have to prove they have had sex with the same gender at sometime in their lives to be eligible? What’s to prevent a heterosexual writers claim that they are bisexual ?
Sam
@Charles Merrill: Case in point: Michael Chabon. Amazing writer. Writes about gay lives. Married to a woman, but wildly rumored to have had boyfriends (or at least sex with men) in his younger years.
Would LLF need an affidavit from one of his former tricks saying “I sucked Michael Chabon’s dick” in order to consider him for an award? Or would he have to produce an actual boyfriend? Could an otherwise straight author get her novel considered by getting drunk and letting a bi-friend finger bang her? Is THIS what we’ve come to?
This goes against a long literary tradition of judging work based on the work, not the author. Great LGBT fiction stands on its own, regardless of the sexuality of its creator, and should be judged accordingly.
Sam
@Sam: I meant “widely,” not “wildly.” Though that could fit too, I guess.
Landon Bryce
@Sam:
But, Sam, Michael Chabon has a Pulitzer Prize. He really, really doesn’t need a Lambda Literary Award.
If you can’t recognize Chris Rice, you are too ignorant about gay literature to comment on it. He’s a horrible writer and a jerk, famous only because of his awful mom, but he’s a huge force in the field.
Anyone who is writing about how stupid this decision is without addressing the #amazonfail issue does not understand it. Gay publishing, not successful gay writers with huge straight followings, is in serious trouble. All media is, but we are especially vulnerable after most specialty sources for gay books have been driven out of business. General interest outlets have shown their utter indifference to making sure gay content is available.
I’m not especially supportive of this decision, but the majority of commenters here seem not to understand or care about gay literature at all.
How about if you haven’t bought a book by a gay writer in the last year, you shut up about an arena you know nothing about?