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The Publishing Triangle presents ten awards annually, tied to a calendar year. The list of this year’s nominees is here.

We present seven awards for the best books of the year. They are the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction; the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction; the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry; the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry; the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction; the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature; and, in conjunction our longtime partner the Ferro-Grumley Foundation, the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction. Each of the winners receives $1000.

In addition, we honor one LGBTQ author annually with the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement (a $3000 prize) and we also present the Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award ($1500).

Finally, we give out the Publishing Triangle Leadership Award, which honors the contributions of those who are not writers to LGBTQ literature and letters ($500).

For books that will be published in 2019, the call for submission will go out early in the autumn and the deadline for entrants will be in early December. (We will provide more details in the late summer of 2019.)

If you have a question about the awards, please write to publishingtriangle@gmail.com

    The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement
    Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
    Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction
    The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry
    The Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry
    The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
    The Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
    The Publishing Triangle Leadership Award
    The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction
    The Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award
    The Robert Chesley Award for Lesbian and Gay Playwriting

The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement

    The Publishing Triangle began honoring a gay or lesbian writer for his or her body of work a few months after it was founded in 1989.

    The Bill Whitehead Award honors a legendary editor; Bill Whitehead was the editor-in-chief at E. P. Dutton in the early 1980s and ended his career at Macmillan. He worked with such gay and lesbian writers as Edmund White, Robert Ferro, and Doris Grumbach, and with Anne Rice (writing as A. N. Roquelaure) and Lana Turner, among others. He died of AIDS in 1987.

    The Bill Whitehead Award is given to a woman in even-numbered years and a man in odd years. Members of the Publishing Triangle nominate both the judges and candidates for the award. The winner receives $3,000.

    The winners thus far have been:
        2019 — Jaime Manrique
        2018 — Sarah Schulman
        2017 — Michael Bronski
        2016 — Eloise Klein Healy
        2015 — Rigoberto Gonzalez
        2014 — Maria Irene Fornes
        2013 — John D'Emilio
        2012 — Alison Bechdel
        2011 — Alan Hollinghurst
        2010 — Blanche Wiesen Cook
        2009 — Martin Duberman
        2008 — Katherine Forrest
        2007 — Andrew Holleran
        2006 — Karla Jay
        2005 — Edward Field
        2004 — Lillian Faderman
        2003 — Christopher Bram
        2002 — Jane Rule
        2001 — Michael Nava
        2000 — Doris Grumbach
        1999 — John Rechy
        1998 — M. E. Kerr
        1997 — Armistead Maupin
        1996 — Joan Nestle
        1995 — Jonathan Ned Katz
        1994 — Judy Grahn
        1993 — Samuel R. Delany
        1992 — Audre Lorde
        1991 — James Purdy
        1990 — Adrienne Rich
        1989 — Edmund White

Nonfiction Awards

The Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction and The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction
    The Publishing Triangle began giving awards for nonfiction in 1997. Each award is for books published in the preceding year in the United States or Canada (i.e., the 2008 awards below honored books published in 2007). 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 works that are by or about lesbians, bisexual women, and/or transwomen, or that have a significant influence upon he lives of queer women.

    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 works that are by or about gay men, bisexual men, and/or transmen, or that have a signifcant influence upon the lives of queer men.

    Publishers and others may nominate candidates for these awards using a submission form posted on our website each autumn, for an entry fee of $40.00. Individual members of the Publishing Triangle may nominate one book for free; corporate members may nominate an unlimited amount of books for free. The finalists and the winners are determined by a panel of judges appointed by the Publishing Triangle's awards committee. The winners each receive $1,000.

    Past winners are:
        Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

        2019 — Imani Perry, Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
        2018 — Rosalind Rosenberg, Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray
        2017 — Sarah Schulman, Conflict is Not Abuse
        2016 — Marcia M. Gallo, "No One Helped": Kitty Genovese, New York City, and The Myth of Urban Apathy
        2015 — Barbara Smith, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around, edited by Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks
        2014 — Julia M. Allen, Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins
        2013 — Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother?
        2012 — Jeanne Córdova, When We Were Outlaws
        2011 — Barbara Hammer, Hammer!
        2010 — Rebecca Brown, American Romances
        2009 — Andrea Weiss, In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain
        2008 — Janet Malcolm, Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice
        2007 — Alison Bechdel, Fun Home
        2006 — Tania Katan, My One-Night Stand with Cancer
        2005 — Alison Smith, Name All the Animals
        2004 — Lillian Faderman, Naked in the Promised Land
        2003 — Terry Wolverton, Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building
        2002 — Laura L. Doan, Fashioning Sapphism
        2001 — Amber Hollibaugh, My Dangerous Desires
        2000 — Hilary Lapsley, Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women
        1999 — Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity
        1998 — Margot Peters, May Sarton: A Biography
        1997 — Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women

        Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction

        2019 — Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
        2018 — Eli Clare, Brilliant Imperfection
        2017 — David France, How to Survive a Plague
        2016 — [tie] Barney Frank, Frank: A Life in Politics from the Grat Society to Same-Sex Marriage; and Michelangelo Signorile, It's Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia, and Winning True Equality
        2015 — Robert Beachy, Gay Berlin
        2014 — Hilton Als, White Girls
        2013 — Christopher Bram, Eminent Outlaws
        2012 — Mark D. Jordan, Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk About Homosexuality
        2011 — Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward
        2010 — James Davidson, The Greeks and Greek Love
        2009 — Kai Wright, Drifting Toward Love
        2008 — Michael Rowe, Other Men's Sons
        2007 — Kenji Yoshino, Covering
        2006 — Martin Moran, The Tricky Part
        2005 — David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
        2004 — John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin
        2003 — Neil Miller, Sex Crime Panic
        2002 — [tie] Ricardo J. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser's; and Robert Reid-Pharr, Black Gay Man
        2001 — Mark Matousek, Lost Father
        2000 — Eric Brandt, Dangerous Liaisons: Blacks, Gays and the Struggle for Equality
        1999 — John Loughery, The Other Side of Silence
        1998 — David Sedaris, Naked
        1997 — Anthony Heilbut, Thomas Mann

Poetry Awards
    The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry and The Thom Gunn for Gay Poetry
    The Publishing Triangle instituted its poetry awards 2001. Each award is for books published in the preceding year in the United States or Canada (i.e., the 2009 awards honored books published in 2008).
    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).
    The Thom Gunn Award honors Thom Gunn (1929-2004), who was the author of The Man with Night Sweats (1992) and many other acclaimed volumes. Gunn, who was born in Kent, England, lived in San Francisco from 1960 until his death. (In its first four years, including the year Mr. Gunn himself won, this award was known as the Triangle Award for Gay Poetry.)
    Publishers and others may nominate candidates for these awards using a submission form posted on our website each autumn, for an entry fee of $40.00. Individual members of the Publishing Triangle may nominate one book for free. The finalists and the winners are determined by a panel of judges appointed by the Publishing Triangle's awards committee. The winners each receive $1000.

    Past winners are:
        The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry

        2019 — Margaree Little, Rest
        2018 — Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Rocket Fantastic
        2017 — Francine J. Harris, Play Dead
        2016 — Jennifer Perrine, No Confession, No Mass
        2015 — Meg Day, Last Psalm at Sea Level
        2014 — Angie Estes, Enchantée
        2013 — Rachel Rose, Song and Spectacle
        2012 — Minnie Bruce Pratt, Inside the Money Machine
        2011 — Jen Currin, The Inquisition Yours
        2010 — Stacie Cassarino, Zero at the Bone
        2009 — Elizabeth Bradfield, Interpretative Work
        2008 — Joan Larkin, My Body
        2007 — Jennifer Rose, Hometown for an Hour
        2006 — Jane Miller, A Palace of Pearls
        2005 — Maureen Seaton, Venus Examines Her Breast
        2004 — Daphne Gottlieb, Final Girl
        2003 — Melanie Braverman, Red
        2002 — Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, Mr. Bluebird
        2001 — Marilyn Hacker, Squares and Courtyards

        The Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry

        2019 — Hieu Minh, Not Here
        2018 — Chen Chen, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities
        2017 — Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds
        2016 — Rick Barot, Chord
        2015 — Jericho Brown, The New Testament
        2014 — Charlie Bondhus, All the Heat We Could Carry
        2013 — Richard Blanco, Looking for the Gulf Motel
        2012 — Henri Cole, Touch
        2011 — Michael Walsh, The Dirt Riddles
        2010 — Ronaldo V. Wilson, Poems of the Black Object
        2009 — Ely Shipley, Boy with Flower
        2008 — [tie] Steve Fellner, Blind Date with Cavafy; and Daniel Hall, Under Sleep
        2007 — Justin Chin, Gutted
        2006 — Richard Siken, Crush
        2005 — Carl Phillips, The Rest of Love
        2004 — Brian Teare, The Room Where I Was Born
        2003 — Greg Hewett, Red Suburb
        2002 — Mark Doty, Source
        2001 — Thom Gunn, Boss Cupid

The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
    Inaugurated in May 2006, this award recognizes outstanding first novels or story collections by LGBT authors. It is unique among the Triangle Literary Awards, in that women and men compete in the same category. The award is open to first-book authors of any age whose work contains queer themes. Writers can have published works of nonfiction, and their short fiction can have previously appeared in a published anthology. The book nominated must be the author's first work of book-length fiction.

    This award honors the distinguished Edmund White, who won the very first Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1990. White is the author, among many other works, of A Boy's Own Story, States of Desire, A Married Man, Fanny, and Arts and Letters. The winner receives $1,000.

    Past winners are:
        2019 — Joseph Cassara, The House of Impossible Beauties
        2018 — SJ Sindu, Marriage of a Thousand Lies
        2017 — Joe Okonkwo, Jazz Moon
        2016 — Carellin Brooks, One Hundred Days of Rain
        2015 — Kim Fu, For Today I Am a Boy
        2014 — Sara Farizan, If You Could Be Mine
        2013 — Lysley Tenorio, Monstress
        2012 — Lara Fergus, My Sister Chaos
        2011 — Katharine Beutner, Alcestis
        2010 — Lori Ostlund, The Bigness of the World
        2009 — Evan Fallenberg, Light Fell
        2008 — Myriam Gurba, Dahlia Season
        2007 — Martin Hyatt, A Scarecrow's Bible
        2006 — Mack Friedman, Setting the Lawn on Fire

The Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
Inaugurated in the spring of 2016, this award recognizes outstanding work from the gender-nonconforming community. Poetry, fiction (including for children), and nonfiction by trans or gender-variant (T/GV) authors is eligible. Nonfiction authored or co-authored by cis authors that is primarily about the T/GV experience or community is also eligible. The winner receives $1,000.
Past winners are:

        2019 — Ed Shipley, Some Animal
        2018 -- Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton, Eds., Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility
        2017 -- Vivek Shraya, Even This Page is White
        2016 -- Nathanael, The Middle Notebookes

The Publishing Triangle Leadership Award
    The Publishing Triangle is proud to honor the best and brightest writers working today. Other people, as well as institutions, contribute to the health, vibrancy, and prestige of LBGT literature. In that light, the Publishing Triangle's Leadership Award puts the spotlight on the contribution of editors, literary agents, and others who have worked tirelessly to see that great books reach avid readers. The winner receives $500.
    Past winners are:
        2019 — Paul Willis
        2018 — Malaga Baldi
        2017 — John Scognamiglio
        2016 — Christopher Street Magazine
        2015 — (no award)
        2014 — Sinister Wisdom magazine
        2013 — Ira Silverberg
        2012 — Frances Goldin
        2011 — Gay and Lesbian Review
        2010 — Michele Karlsberg
        2009 — Carole DeSanti
        2008 — Carol Seajay and Richard Labonte
        2007 — Nancy Bereano
        2006 — Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop
        2005 — Lesbian Herstory Archives
        2004 — Barbara Gittings
        2003 — Jed Mattes
        2002 — Michael Denneny

The Ferro–Grumley Awards
    The Ferro–Grumley Awards were first awarded in 1990. They are made possible by the estates of novelists and lovers Robert Ferro (The Family of Max Desir) and Michael Grumley (Life Studies) and are funded and administered by the Ferro–Grumley Foundation, headed by Stephen Greco.
    The Publishing Triangle is proud to have been associated with the Ferro–Grumley Awards since 1994.
    The purpose of these awards is to honor culture-driving fiction from LGBT points of view. Through 2008, two awards have been given each year, in the categories of "women" and "men," to the authors of the most significant novels and collections and short stories. Going forward, the structure of the awards are being modified to honor one book per year, irrespective of gender.
    Each award listed is for a book published in the preceding year in the United States or Canada (i.e., the 2008 awards honored books published in 2007). Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards, Inc., and the Publishing Triangle have collaborated in soliciting submissions for awards and in hosting an awards ceremony since 1994. Publishers and others may nominate candidates for the award using a submission form posted on the Publishing Triangle website each autumn, for an entry fee of $40.00. Individual members of the Publishing Triangle may nominate one book for free. The finalists and the winners are determined by a panel of judges appointed by the Ferro-Grumley Foundation. Winners receive $1000.

    Past winners are:
       The Ferro–Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction
       2019 — John R. Gordon, Drapetomania
        2018 — Alistair McCartney, The Disintegrations
      2017 — Cathleen Schine, They May Not Mean to, But They Do
      2016 — Michael Goldman, A Poet of the Invisible World
        2015 — Bernardine Evaristo, Mr. Loverman
        2014 — Sara Farizan, If You Could Be Mine
        2013 — Trebor Healey, A Horse Named Sorrow
        2012 — Paul Russell, The Unreal Life of Sergei Nabakov
        2011 — Michael Sledge, The More I Owe You
        2010 — Sebastian Stuart, The Hour Between
        2009 — Alison Bechdel, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

        The Ferro–Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction

        2008 — Ali Liebegott, The IHOP Papers
        2007 — Lisa Carey, Every Visible Thing
        2006 — Patricia Grossman, Brian in Three Seasons
        2005 — Stacey D'Erasmo, A Seahorse Year
        2004 — Nina Revoyr, Southland
        2003 — Carol Anshaw, Lucky in the Corner
        2002 — Emma Donoghue, Slammerkin
        2001 — Sarah Waters, Affinity
        2000 — Judy Doenges, What She Left Me
        1999 — Patricia Powell, The Pagoda
        1998 — Elana Dykewoman, Beyond the Pale
        1997 — Persimmon Blackbridge, Sunnybrook
        1996 — Sarah Schulman, Rat Bohemia
        1995 — Heather Lewis, House Rules
        1994 — Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body
        1993 — Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina
        1992 — Blanche McCrary Boyd, The Revolution of Little Girls
        1991 — Cherry Muhanji, Her
        1990 — Ruthann Robson, Eye of the Hurricane

        The Ferro–Grumley Award for Gay Fiction

        2008 — Peter Cameron, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
        2007 — Christopher Bram, Exiles in America
        2006 — Barry McCrea, The First Verse
        2005 — Adam Berlin, Belmondo Style
        2004 — Trebor Healey, Through It Came Bright Colors
        2003 — Jamie O'Neill, At Swim Two Boys
        2002 — David Ebershoff, The Rose City
        2001 — Edmund White, The Married Man
        2000 — Paul Russell, The Coming Storm
        1999 — Michael Cunningham, The Hours
        1998 — Colm Toibin, The Story of the Night
        1997 — Andrew Holleran, The Beauty of Men
        1996 — Felice Picano, Like People in History
        1995 — Mark Merlis, American Studies
        1994 — John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil [nonfiction]
        1993 — Randall Kenan, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead
        1992 — Melvin Dixon, Vanishing Rooms
        1991 — Allen Barnett, The Body and Its Dangers
        1990 — Dennis Cooper, Closer

The Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award

     The Publishing Triangle gave its first award for an emerging writer in the spring of 2017. This prize is presented to an LGBTQ writer who has shown exceptional talent and the potential for continued literary success and significance in the future. Applicants must The nominee must have published at least one but no more than two books, written in the discipline of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Works must be in the English language. The winner receives $1,500.

     Past winners are:


        2019 — Julian Randall
                   2018 — Sarah Perry
        2017 — Chinelo Okparanta

The Robert Chesley Award for Lesbian and Gay Playwriting
    The Robert Chesley Award for Lesbian and Gay Playwriting honors the memory of playwright Robert Chesley. For many years, these awards were presented at our awards ceremony.
    The Chesley Foundation has taken its awards program in another direction, one that does not involve a public presentation. For more information about the foundation, and its awards, please contact Victor Bumbalo.

    Past winners are:
        2007 — Eric Bentley, Chris Weikel
        2006 — Kathleen Warnock, Megan Terry
        2005 — Michael Kearns, Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
        2004 — Rebecca Ranson, Jane Shepard
        2003 — H.M. Koutoukas, Rev. Alvin Carmines Jr.
        2002 — Christopher Shinn, Shelia Callaghan
        2001 — Maria Irene Fornes
        2000 — Jeff Weiss
        1999 — Madeleine Olnek
        1998 — Chay Yew
        1997 — Paula Vogel
        1996 — Robert Patrick, Susan Miller
        1995 — Victor Lodato
        1994 — Lisa Kron, Doric Wilson