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 Ferro–Grumley Literary Awards Inc., a 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 LGBTQ points of view. Through 2008, two awards were given each year, in the categories of “women” and “men,” to the authors of the most significant novels and collections and short stories. After a transitional year in which 7 books were named finalists and 2 winners—1 of each gender—were selected, there is now a single prize. For several years it was called the Ferro–Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction; it is now called the Ferro–Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction.
The award is given for books published in the preceding year (i.e., the 2025 award will honor a book published in 2024). The finalists and the winners are determined by a panel of judges appointed by Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards. 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.
THE FERRO GRUMLEY AWARD FOR LGBTQ FICTION
2024
Chain-Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Penguin Random House)
Dandelion Daughter, by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, translated by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch (Esplanade Books)
Girlfriends, by Emily Zhou (LittlePuss Press)
Pomegranate, by Helen Elaine Lee (Atria Books)
Wound, by Oksana Vasyakina, translated by Elina Alter (Catapult Books)
2023
Call Me Cassandra, by Marcial Gala, trans. Anna Kushner (Farrar Straus Giroux)
Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, by James Hannaham (Little, Brown & Co.)
The Other Mother, by Rachel M. Harper (Counterpoint)
Brother Alive, by Zain Khalid (Grove Atlantic)
Junie, by Chelene Knight (Book*hug Press)
Big Girl, by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (Liveright/W.W Norton & Co)
2022
Afterparties, by Anthony Veasna So (Ecco)
Milk Fed, by Melissa Broder (Scribner)
An Ordinary Wonder, by Buki Papillon (Pegasus Books)
The Rebellious Tide, by Eddy Boudel Tan (Dundurn Press)
Summer Fun, by Jeanne Thornton (Soho Press)
2021
The Appointment, by Katharina Volckmer (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)
Apsara Engine, by Bishakh Som (Feminist Press)
Fiebre Tropical, by Juli Delgado Lopera (Feminist Press)
Memorial, by Bryan Washington (Riverhead)
Neotenica, by Joon Oluchi Lee (Nightboat Books)
2020
A Generous Spirit: Selected Work by Beth Brant, edited by Janice Gould (Sinister Wisdom)
Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (Black Cat / Grove Atlantic)
Lie with Me, by Philippe Besson; translated by Molly Ringwald (Scribner)
Like Wings, Your Hands, by Elizabeth Earley (Red Hen Press)
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press)
Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson (Riverhead)
2019
Drapetomania, by John R. Gordon (Team Angelica)
Eden, by Andrea Kleine (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Evolution of Love, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe (Rare Bird)
A Ladder to the Sky, by John Boyne (Hogarth/Crown)
Tin Man, by Sarah Winman (Putnam)
2018
The Ada Decades, by Paula Martinac (Bywater Books)
The Disintegrations, by Alistair McCartney (University of Wisconsin Press)
The Heart’s Invisible Furies, by John Boyne (Hogarth/Crown)
Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
Outside Is the Ocean, by Matthew Lansburgh (University of Iowa Press)
2017
Advocate, by Darren Greer (Cormorant Books)
Moonstone, by Sjón; translated by Victoria Cribb (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
They May Not Mean To, But They Do, by Cathleen Schine (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
A Thin Bright Line, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe (University of Wisconsin Press)
The Troubleseeker, by Alan Lessik (Chelsea Station Editions)
2016
After the Parade, by Lori Ostlund (Scribner)
JD, by Mark Merlis (Terrace Books/University of Wisconsin Press)
A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara (Doubleday)
A Poet of the Invisible World, by Michael Golding (Picador)
Under the Udala Trees, by Chinelo Okparanta (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
2015
All I Love and Know, by Judith Frank (William Morrow/HarperCollins)
I Loved You More, by Tom Spanbauer (Hawthorne Books)
Mr. Loverman, by Bernardine Evaristo (Akashic Books)
Sideways Down the Sky, by Barry Brennessel (MLR Press)
When Everything Feels Like the Movies, by Raziel Reid (Arsenal Pulp Press)
2014
All This Talk of Love, by Christopher Castellani (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)
If You Could Be Mine, by Sara Farizan (Algonquin Young Readers)
Local Souls, by Allan Gurganus (Liveright/W.W. Norton)
The Two Hotel Francforts, by David Leavitt (Bloomsbury USA)
Where You Can Find Me, by Sheri Joseph (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press)
2013
An Arab Melancholia, by Abdelleh Taïa (Semiotex[e])
By Blood, by Ellen Ullman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
A Horse Named Sorrow, by Trebor Healey (University of Wisconsin Press)
King of Angels, by Perry Brass (Belhue Press)
The Lava in My Bones, by Barry Webster (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Sea Change, by Ken Anderson (Starbooks Press)
2012
Monoceros, by Suzette Mayr (Coach House Press)
The Necessity of Certain Behaviors, by Shannon Cain (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Quarantine, by Rahul Mehta (HarperPerennial/HarperCollins)
Remembrance of Things I Forgot, by Bob Smith (University of Wisconsin Press)
The Stranger’s Child, by Alan Hollinghurst (Alfred A. Knopf)
The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov, by Paul Russell (Cleis Press)
2011
The Big Bang Symphony, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe (University of Wisconsin Press)
Inferno, by Eileen Myles (OR Books)
Krakow Melt, by Daniel Allen Cox (Arsenal Pulp Press)
The More I Owe You, by Michael Sledge (Counterpoint Press)
Perfect Peace, by Daniel Black (St. Martin’s Press)
The Silver Hearted, by David McConnell (Alyson Books)
2010
The Blonde on the Train, by Eleanor Lerman (Mayapple Press)
A Field Guide to Deception, by Jill Malone (Bywater Books)
The Hour Between, by Sebastian Stuart (Alyson Books)
Lake Overturn, by Vestal McIntyre (Harper/HarperCollins)
More of This World or Maybe Another, by Barb Johnson (HarperPerennial/HarperCollins)
Shaming the Devil, by G. Winston James (Top Pen Press)
2009
The Book of Getting Even, by Benjamin Taylor (Steerforth)
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Love and Lies, by Ellen Wittlinger (Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers)
The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff (Random House)
The Story of a Marriage, by Andrew Sean Greer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Us Ones in Between, by Blair Mastbaum (Running Press)
THE FERRO-GRUMLEY AWARDS FOR LGBT FICTION
In this transitional year, the award was renamed, to broaden its scope to explicitly include books about the bisexual and transgendered experience. A field of 7 finalists competed for 2 awards.
2008
Brendan Wolf, by Brian Malloy
Call Me by Your Name, by André Aciman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Child, by Sarah Schulman (Carroll & Graf)
The IHOP Papers, by Ali Liebegott (Carroll & Graf)
Like Son, by Felicia Luna Lemus (Akashic Books)
Michael Tolliver Lives, by Armistead Maupin (Harper/HarperCollins)
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, by Peter Cameron (Frances Foster Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
THE FERRO-GRUMLEY AWARD FOR LESBIAN FICTION
2007
Bow Grip, by Ivan E. Coyote (Arsenal Pulp Press)
Every Visible Thing, by Lisa Carey (William Morrow/HarperCollins)
The Last Time I Saw You, by Rebecca Brown (City Lights)
2006
Brian in Three Seasons, by Patricia Grossman (Permanent Press)
Gotta Find Me an Angel, by Brenda Brooks (Raincoast Books)
Loose End, by Ivan E. Coyote (Arsenal Pulp Press)
2005
Life Mask, by Emma Donoghue (Harcourt)
Notice, by Heather Lewis (Serpent’s Tail)
A Seahorse Year, by Stacey D’Erasmo (Houghton Mifflin)
2004
Dykes & Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel (Alyson Books)
The End of Youth, by Rebecca Brown (City Lights)
Southland, by Nina Revoyr (Akashic Books)
2003
Dear First Love, by Zoé Valdés (HarperCollins)
Hunger, by Jane Eaton Hamilton (Oberon Press)
Lucky in the Corner, by Carol Anshaw (Houghton Mifflin)
2002
Days of Awe, by Achy Obejas (Ballantine)
Light Coming Back, by Ann Wadsworth (Alyson Books)
Slammerkin, by Emma Donoghue (Harcourt)
2001
Affinity, by Sarah Waters (Riverhead)
Cool for You, by Eileen Myles (Soft Skull Press)
The Silk Road, by Jane Summer (Alyson Books)
2000
Shy Girl, by Elizabeth Stark (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Waters (Riverhead)
What She Left Me, by Judy Doenges (Middlebury Press)
1999
Don’t Explain, by Jewelle Gomez
Like, by Ali Smith
The Pagoda, by Patricia Powell
1998
Beyond the Pale, by Elana Dykewoman
Fall on Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Soul Kiss, by Shay Youngblood
1997
Love and Death and Other Stories, by Jenifer Levin
Old Love, by Margaret Ehrhart
Sunnybrook, by Permsimmon Blackbridge
THE FERRO GRUMLEY AWARD FOR GAY FICTION
2007
Alternatives to Sex, by Stephen McCauley (Simon and Schuster)
Exiles in America, by Christopher Bram (William Morrow/HarperCollins)
A Scarecrow’s Bible, by Martin Hyatt (Suspect Thoughts Press)
2006
Branwell, by Douglas A. Martin (Soft Skull Press)
The First Verse, by Barry McCrea (Carroll & Graf)
Still Life with June, by Darren Greer (St. Martin’s Press)
2005
Belmondo Style, by Adam Berlin (St. Martin’s Press)
The Master, by Colm Tóibín (Scribner)
Van Allen’s Ecstasy, by Jim Tushinski (Southern Tier Editions/Harrington Park Press)
2004
Lives of the Circus Animals, by Christopher Bram (William Morrow/HarperCollins)
The Music of Your Life, by John Rowell (Simon and Schuster)
Through It Came Bright Colors, by Trebor Healey (Harrington Park Press)
2003
At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O’Neill (Scribner)
Avoidance, by Michael Lowenthal (Graywolf Press)
The Year of Ice, by Brian Malloy (St. Martin’s Press)
2002
Edinburgh, by Alexander Chee (Welcome Rain Publishers)
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, by J. T. LeRoy (Bloomsbury)
The Rose City, by David Ebershoff (Viking Press)
2001
Guess Again: Stories, by Bernard Cooper (Simon and Schuster)
The Married Man, by Edmund White (Alfred A. Knopf)
Martin Bauman; Or, A Sure Thing, by David Leavitt (Houghton Mifflin)
2000
Breakfast with Scot, by Michael Downing (Counterpoint)
The Coming Storm, by Paul Russell (St. Martin’s Press)
Allan Stein, by Matthew Stadler (Grove)
1999
The Hours, by Michael Cunningham
The Long Falling, by Keith Ridgway
The Same Embrace, by Michael Lowenthal
1998
Bruiser, by Richard House
The Farewell Symphony, by Edmund White
The Story of the Night, by Colm Tóibín
1997
The Beauty of Men, by Andrew Holleran
The Captain’s Fire, by J. S. Marcus
The Death of Friends, by Michael Nava
THE FERRO-GRUMLEY AWARDS FOR LITERARY EXCELLENCE
Between 1990 and 1996, there were no finalists—only a winner was announced. As noted, one year the male prize was presented to a work of nonfiction.
Men
1996 Felice Picano, Like People in History
1995 Mark Merlis, American Studies
1994 John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil* [*special award for distinguished nonfiction]
1993 Randall Keenan, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead
1992 Melvin Dixon, Vanishing Rooms
1991 Allen Barnett, The Body and Its Dangers
1990 Dennis Cooper, Closer
Women
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 Blanch McCrary Boyd, The Revolution of Little Girls
1991 Cherry Muhanji, Her
1990 Ruthann Robson, Eye of the Hurricane