Judges have whittled this year’s record-breaking 520 nominations for the annual Lambda Literary Awards down to 114 finalists. The shortlist for the LGBT ‘Lammys’ is an international affair: Kiwi Rebecca Swan’s transgender photographic classic, Assume Nothing, rubs up against Canadian Laurie MacFayden’s debut poetry collection White Shirt, described as “Sappho crossed with the Supremes”. American literary superstar Michael Cunningham’s new novel, By Nightfall, mixes with bestselling Scot Val McDermid’s latest Carol Jordan/Tony Hill thriller, Fever of the Bone. “We hear report after report on the death of books,” says Lambda Literary Foundation board co-chair Judith Markowitz, remarking on the number of nominations — up from the last record, 462 in 2009. She adds that the quality is “extremely high. All of this bodes well for the future of LGBT literature.” Winners of the US-based awards, which have been running for 23 years, will be announced in a glitzy ceremony in New York on May 26.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 17th March 2011 - 10:52am