The Publishing Triangle began giving awards for nonfiction in 1997. Each award is for books published in the preceding year (i.e., the 2025 award will honor the best book published in 2024). 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 the lives of queer women.
The finalists and the winners are determined by a panel of judges appointed by the Publishing Triangle’s awards committee. The winner receives a prize of $1000.
In the listings below, finalists are presented in alphabetical order by book title. Bold type and a triangle
indicate winners. There has been a year with a tie, 2020
2024
The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire Before Stonewall, by Cookie Woolner (University of North Carolina Press)
Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H (The Dial Press)
Suffering Sappho!: Lesbian Camp in American Popular Culture, by Barbara Jane Brickman (Rutgers University)
We the Parasites, by A.V. Marraccini (Sublunary Editions)
2023
Brown Neon, by Raquel Gutierrez (Coffee House Press)
A Cheerleader’s Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, by MB Cashetta (Engine Books)
Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, by Wendy L. Rouse (NYU Press)
Spy Daughter, Queer Girl: In Search of Truth and Acceptance in a Family of Secrets, by Leslie Absher (Latah Books)
2022
Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography, by Jackie Kay (Vintage)
Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing, by Lauren Hough (Vintage)
Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought, edited by Briona Simone Jones (The New Press)
The Secret to Superhuman Strength, by Alison Bechdel (Mariner)
2021
Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing, by Julie Marie Wade (Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press)
Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity, by Tana Wojczuk (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, by Jenn Shapland (Tin House)
The Power of Adrienne Rich, by Hilary Holladay (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
2020
In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press) (tie)
Sontag: Her Life and Work, by Benjamin Moser (Ecco)
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, by Saidiya Hartman (W. W. Norton) (tie)
We Have Always Been Here, by Samra Habib (Viking / Penguin Canada)
2019
Black, Queer, Southern, Women: An Oral History, by E. Patrick Johnson (University of North Carolina Press
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Arsenal Pulp Press)
The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon, by Jaime Harker (University of North Carolina Press)
Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, by Imani Perry (Beacon Press)
2018
Abandon Me, by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury USA)
Afterglow, by Eileen Myles (Grove Press)
Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray, by Rosalind Rosenberg (Oxford University Press)
Mean, by Myriam Gurba (Coffee House Press)
2017
Conflict Is Not Abuse, by Sarah Schulman (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left, by Emily K. Hobson (University of California Press)
Queer Virtue, by Elizabeth M. Edman (Beacon Press)
2016
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 Gallo (Cornell University Press)
2015
Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: 40 Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith, by Barbara Smith; edited by Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks (SUNY Press)
A Cup of Water Under My Bed, by Daisy Hernandez (Beacon Press)
Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger, by Kelly Cogswell (University of Minnesota Press)
The End of Eve, by Ariel Gore (Hawthorne Books)
2014
Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, by Julia Serano (Seal Press)
Growing Up Golem, by Donna Minkowitz (Magnus Books/Riverdale Avenue)
Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins, by Julia M. Allen (SUNY Press)
Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders, by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Crown)
2013
Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
My Almost Certainly Real Imaginary Jesus, by Kelly Barth (Arktoi/Red Hen)
A Queer and Pleasant Danger, by Kate Bornstein (Beacon Press)
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal, by Jeanette Winterson (Grove Press)
2012
Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader, by Gayle S. Rubin (Duke University Press)
Sister Arts: The Erotics of Lesbian Landscapes, by Lisa L. Moore (University of Minnesota Press)
When We Were Outlaws, by Jeanne Córdova (Spinsters Ink)
2011
Hammer!, by Barbara Hammer (The Feminist Press)
Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature, by Emma Donoghue (Alfred A. Knopf)
The Professor and Other Writings, by Terry Castle (Harper/HarperCollins)
2010
American Romances, by Rebecca Brown (City Lights)
Called Back, by Mary Cappello (Alyson Books)
The Talented Miss Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin’s Press)
2009
Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, by Nancy D. Polikoff (Beacon Press)
Criminal Intimacy, by Regina Kunzel (University of Chicago Press)
In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain, by Andrea Weiss (University of Chicago Press)
2008
An Army of Ex-Lovers, by Amy Hoffman (University of Massachusetts Press)
Between Women, by Sharon Marcus (Princeton University Press)
Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, by Janet Malcolm (Yale University Press)
2007
Different Daughters, by Marcia Gallo (Carroll & Graf)
Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin)
Hit by a Farm, by Catherine Friend (Marlowe & Company)
2006
My One-Night Stand with Cancer, by Tania Katan (Alyson Books)
On the Ice, by Gretchen Legler (Milkweed Editions)
Wild Girls, by Diana Souhami (St. Martin’s Press)
2005
Alice Walker, by Evelyn C. White (W. W. Norton)
Name All the Animals, by Alison Smith (Scribner)
Warrior Poet: A Life of Audre Lorde, by Alexis De Veaux (W. W. Norton)
2004
Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith, by Andrew Wilson (Bloomsbury)
Naked in the Promised Land, by Lillian Faderman (Houghton Mifflin)
The Sharon Kowalski Case: Lesbian and Gay Rights on Trial, by Casey Charles (University Press of Kansas)
2003
Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Women’s Building, by Terry Wolverton (City Lights)
The Queen of Peace Room, by Magie Dominic (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
Wild at Heart, by Suzanna Rodriguez (Ecco/HarperCollins)
2002
All the Rage, by Suzanna Danuta Walters (University of Chicago Press)
Arts of the Possible, by Adrienne Rich (W. W. Norton)
Fashioning Sapphism, by Laura L. Doan (Columbia University Press)
2001
Girl Reel, by Bonnie J. Morris (Coffee House Press)
My Dangerous Desires, by Amber Hollibaugh (Duke University Press)
The Room Lit by Roses, by Carole Maso (Counterpoint)
2000
Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women, by Hilary Lapsley (University of Massachusetts Press)
To Believe in Women, by Lillian Faderman (Houghton Mifflin)
A Woman Like That: Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories, edited by Joan Larkin (Avon)
1999
Admission Accomplished, by Jill Johnston
Female Masculinity, by Judith Halberstam
The Incredible Bechdel, by Alison Bechdel
1998
Hospital Time, by Amy Hoffman
The Lesbian Menace, by Sherrie Inness
May Sarton, by Margot Peters
1997
Love Between Women, by Bernadette Brooten
Transgender Warriors, by Leslie Feinberg
White Blackbird, by Honor Moore