The Publishing Triangle is glad to announce that In Her Words: 20th Century Lesbian Fiction is the winner of this year’s Publishing Triangle Leadership Award. Created in 2002, this award recognizes contributions to LGBTQ literature by those who are not primarily writers, such as editors, agents, librarians, and institutions. This year’s winner, the first feature documentary to be honored, receives $500.
In Her Words examines the history and impact of lesbian fiction from the 1920s through the 1990s. Eighteen authors were interviewed, including Dorothy Allison, Ann Bannon, Rita Mae Brown, Jewelle Gomez, Jenifer Levin, Lee Lynch, Achy Obejas, and Sarah Waters. The narrator, historian Lillian Faderman, gives historical perspective to the film.
In honoring In Her Words, the Publishing Triangle salutes the immediacy of this film, which portrays the history of 20th-century lesbian fiction from the perspective of those who created it; In Her Words ensures that the legacies of these literary pioneers will continue to be available to inform and inspire future generations.
The project had its origin at the 2014 National Women’s Music Festival in Madison, Wisconsin, where author Marianne K. Martin was the keynote speaker and author Sandra Moran was presenting on lesbian authors. Moran died not long after, but her widow, Cheryl Pletcher, stepped in to continue the project, and Lisa Marie Evans was brought on to make the movie.
Martin, Pletcher, and Evans will accept the Leadership Award at the 32nd annual Triangle Awards, to be held on April 30, 2020, in New York City. The ceremony, at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium (63 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, starting at 7 p.m.), is free and open to the public.