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The Publishing Triangle's 21st Annual Triangle Awards
Presented May 7
Martin Duberman Receives Bill
Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award
Winners, Finalists Announced
for Best
Lesbian and Gay Fiction,
Nonfiction, Poetry, and Debut Fiction Published in 2008
Carole DeSanti Receives
Leadership Award
The 21st Annual Triangle Awards, honoring the best lesbian and
gay fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published in 2008, was
presented on May 7, 2009, at the Tishman Auditorium of the New School
(66 West 12th Street in New York City) at 7 p.m.
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.
Martin Duberman is the
2009 recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime
Achievement, named in honor of a legendary editor of the 1970s
and 1980s. Duberman is the author of some twenty books, including Stonewall; Charles Francis Adams (winner of
the Bancroft Prize); James Russell
Lowell (a finalist for the National Book Award); Hidden from History (edited with
Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey Jr., and the winner of two Lambda
Book Awards); Paul Robeson
(winner of the George Freedley Memorial Award); Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey; and The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein (a
finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Randy Shilts Award for Gay
Nonfiction last year and a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize). He is
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the City University of
New York, and the founder and first director of the Center for Lesbian
and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the CUNY Graduate School. His most recent
book is Waiting to Land: A (Mostly)
Political Memoir, 1985-2008. The Bill Whitehead Award is given
to a man in odd-numbered years and a woman in even years, and the
winner receives $3000.
The Publishing Triangle began giving the Shilts-Grahn awards for nonfiction
in 1997. Each recipient receives $1000. The Judy Grahn Award honors the
American writer, cultural theorist and activist (b. 1940) best known for The Common Woman (1969) and Another Mother Tongue (rev. ed.,
1984). It recognizes the best nonfiction book of the year affecting
lesbian lives--the book may be by a lesbian, for example, or about a
lesbian or lesbian culture, or both.
Finalists for the Judy Grahn
Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
Regina Kunzel, Criminal Intimacy (University
of Chicago Press)
Nancy Polikoff, Beyond (Straight and
Gay) Marriage (Beacon Press)
WINNER: Andrea
Weiss, In the Shadow of the
Magic Mountain (University of Chicago Press)
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.
Finalists for the Randy Shilts
Award for Gay Nonfiction
Linas Alsenas, Gay America (Amulet
Books/Abrams)
Bob Morris, Assisted Loving
(Harper)
WINNER:
Kai Wright, Drifting Toward Love
(Beacon Press)
The Publishing Triangle established its poetry awards in 2001. Each
recipient 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
WINNER:
Elizabeth Bradfield, Interpretive
Work (Red Hen Press)
Maureen McLane, Same Life (Farrar
Straus Giroux)
Elaine Sexton, Causeway (New
Issues)
The Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry
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
Jericho Brown, Please, (New
Issues)
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire
(Harper)
WINNER:
Ely Shipley, Boy with Flowers
(Barrow Street Press)
The Publishing Triangle’s newest award, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction,
was first presented in 2006. This prize is named in honor of the
esteemed novelist and man of letters, Edmund White—who won the very
first Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1989. The Edmund
White Award celebrates the future of lesbian and gay 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
WINNER:
Evan Fallenberg, Light Fell (Soho
Press)
Alistair McCartney, The End of the
World Book (University of Wisconsin Press)
Shawn Stewart Ruff, Finlater
(Quote Editions)
Carole DeSanti is the
winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Leadership
Award. Created in 2002, this award recognizes contributions to
lesbian and gay literature by those who are not primarily
writers—editors, agents, librarians, and others. DeSanti has been an
advocate for LGBT books since the 1980s, when she became the first
openly lesbian editor at a major American trade publisher. Back then,
at E.P. Dutton, she acquired Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina, which went
on to become a finalist for the National Book Award. She has also
published such writers as Jenifer Levin, Sarah Schulman, Betty Berzon,
Lisa Alther, and John Preston. DeSanti is currently Vice President,
Editor at Large at the Penguin Group, where she continues to champion
diversity, original voices, and alternative points of view.
The Ferro-Grumley Awards for
lesbian and gay fiction were
established
in 1988 to recognize, promote excellence in, and give greater access to
fiction writing from lesbian and gay points of view. These awards honor
the memory of authors Robert Ferro
(The Blue Star, Second Son, etc.)
and Michael Grumley (Life Drawing, etc.), life partners
who died that
year of AIDS within weeks of each other. One award is given each year
(from 1988 through last year, two awards were given each year),
bestowed by a newly constituted panel of judges. Judges are selected
from throughout the U.S. and Canada, from the arts, media, publishing,
bookselling, and related fields. The winner receives $500.
Finalists for The Ferro-Grumley
Awards for LGBT Fiction
WINNER:
Alison Bechdel, The Essential Dykes
to Watch Out For (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt)
David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife
(Random House)
Andrew Sean Greer, The Story of a
Marriage (Farrar Straus Giroux)
Blair Mastbaum, Us Ones In Between
(Running Press)
Ben Taylor, The Book of Getting Even (Steerforth)
Ellen Wittlinger, Love and Lies
(Simon & Schuster Books for Young
Readers)
The Publishing Triangle Literary Awards Fund
Speaking of the Triangle awards, we are on the way toward our goal of
raising $25,000 to fund our annual literary
awards in nonfiction and poetry. Since the fund-raising drive was
announced at the May 2004 awards ceremony, more than fifty donors have
responded with generous gifts totaling more than $17,000.
For information on how you can make a fully tax-deductible
contribution and a list of generous friends who helped endow this fund,
please click here.
Our LGBT Reading List
Do you love LGBT literature and want to know what to read next? Well,
then you've landed on the right web page. The Publishing Triangle asked
two distinguished panels of judges to come up with The 100 Best Lesbian and Gay Novels and The 100 Best Lesbian and Gay Nonfiction
Books of all time.
We also asked fourteen lesbian book reviewers, booksellers,
librarians, and/or authors to name the Most Notable Lesbian Books of 2004.
Also be sure to check out new
publications by Publishing Triangle members and books that won 2004 Publishing Triangle
Awards.
Volunteer Now! Ask Us How!
The Publishing Triangle is a not-for-profit organization that relies on
its members and friends to volunteer their services. We could use help
with event planning, fund raising, the web site, and coordinating many
other activities. If you would like to volunteer, send an e-mail to Volunteer
Coordinator with "Publishing Triangle" in the subject line.
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