Kate Clinton Returns as Master of Ceremonies
Charles Rice-Gonzalez will serve as Director of this event
Masha Gessen, A.M. Homes, David Mixner, Seth Rudetsky, Ira Silverberg, Urvashi Vaid Among Stellar List of Presenters
The Lambda Literary Foundation is pleased to announce that Alison Bechdel will receive the Foundation’s Trustee Award for Excellence in Literature and Kate Bornstein will receive the Pioneer Award at the 26th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (“Lammys”). Bechdel and Bornstein will be honored along with the winning authors of 24 separate LGBT literary categories as determined by over 90 judges. The Lammys bring together over 450 attendees, sponsors, and celebrities to celebrate excellence in LGBT literature, making it the most glamorous and prestigious LGBT literary event in the world. The awards will be hosted for the third year in a row by comedienne Kate Clinton on Monday, June 2nd in New York City at The Great Hall at Cooper Union (7 East 7th St @ 3rd Ave, New York City). A VIP After-Party presented by Scholastic will immediately follow the ceremony.
Bechdel is the author of the bestselling graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which was named the number one Best Book of the Year by Time, and was made into the critically-acclaimed musical of the same name. Her second memoir, Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama was Winner of the 2013 Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction (Triangle Awards). For 25 years she wrote and drew the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, a visual chronicle of modern life – queer and otherwise – considered “one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period.” She’s the recipient of a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a Marsh Professor-at Large at the University of Vermont. Bechdel will be introduced by cartoonist Justin Hall, award-winning creator of the series True Travel Tales and the Lambda-nominated Glamazonia the Uncanny Super Tranny and editor of No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, which earned a Lambda Literary Award and an Eisner nomination.
Bornstein is an author, playwright and performance artist who has performed internationally and whose books are taught in over 120 colleges and universities around the world. Her groundbreaking books in the field of Women and Gender Studies include Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives To Suicide For Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us, My Gender Workbook, the cyber-romance-action novel, Nearly Roadkill (with co-author Caitlin Sullivan), and the memoir A Queer and Pleasant Danger. Her plays and performance pieces include Strangers in Paradox, Hidden: A Gender, The Opposite Sex Is Neither, Virtually Yours, y2kate: gender virus 2000. Through her books and performance pieces, Bornstein occupies an international position of advocacy for marginalized youth, has earned two citations of honor from the New York City Council, and continues to garner praise and awards from civil rights groups around the globe. Bornstein will be introduced by her life partner, Barbara Carrellas. Carrellas is a sex pioneer, writer, performance artist, and author of the first LGBTQ-inclusive Tantric sex guide: Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty First Century.
“This year’s special honorees, Alison Bechdel and Kate Bornstein, are groundbreaking writers, artists and LGBT advocates,” said Tony Valenzuela, Executive Director. “We are privileged to celebrate their tremendous contributions at this year’s Lammy Awards.”
Previous Lammy finalist and 2010 Pioneer Award recipient, comedienne Clinton returns to reprise her role as master of ceremonies with her signature brand of topical, political comedy. Clinton will share the stage with a glittering line up of awards presenters who hail from the worlds of literature, theatre, politics, film, adult entertainment, and television.
Confirmed Lammy presenters in alphabetical order:
Novelist and solo performer Mike Albo; Henry Alford, Thurber Humor Prize winner, author and New York Times columnist; Hilton Als, New Yorker staff writer, author and Lammy finalist for White Girls; Bureau of General Services Queer Division founders Donnie Jochum and Greg Newton; Harper Collins publisher Jonathan Burnham; playwright and artistic director of the Obie-winning company Fulcrum Theater Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas; Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author and feature writer for The New York Times Magazine on addiction, sex, and sexuality; Chris Freeman, author of the 2001 Lambda Award-winning The Isherwood Century; Masha Gessen, 2013 Media for Liberty Award-winning journalist and author; Tami Gold, maker of films at the forefront of social justice; Conner Habib, writer, lecturer, and porn actor who has won awards in all of those fields; New York City nightlife legend, comedian, and internationally renowned entertainer Murray Hill; A.M. Homes, award-winning novelist, creator of Showtime’s The L Word, creative writing teacher at Princeton; Stephen Ira, transgender poet and Lambda Fellow; Mitch Kellaway, queer Latino trans man and co-editor of Manning Up; Sassafras Lowrey, 2013 Lambda Literary Foundation Emerging Writer Award winner, editor of the two-time American Library Association honored and Lambda Literary Finalist Kicked Out anthology; Carlos Menchaca, the first Mexican-American elected to public office in New York City, and the first openly-gay New York City Council member from Brooklyn; David Mixner, once dubbed by Newsweek as the most powerful gay man in America and international human and gay rights activist; Cecca Austin Ochoa, editorial nonfiction editor and blog editor of Apogee Journal; Pauline Park, first openly transgender grand marshal in the history of the New York City LGBT Pride March and chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy; Tommy “Teebs” Pico, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry; Seth Rudetsky, afternoon Broadway host on Sirius/XM radio and co-writer and star of the hit off-Broadway musical Disaster!; leader of the band MEN and one-third of the electronic-feminist-punk band and performance project, Le Tigre, JD Samson; Ira Silverberg, Strategic Advisor to Open Road Integrated Media and past Literature Director of the National Endowment for the Arts; 2011 recipient of the Lambda Literary Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize Susan Stinson; Urvashi Vaid, activist, attorney, writer, and director of the Engaging Tradition Project at the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, at Columbia Law School; Linda Villarosa, head of the journalism program at the City College of New York.
“Our international lineup of presenters contains an astonishing cross section of notable names from academia, politics, journalism, publishing and entertainment,” said Lambda Literary President S. Chris Shirley.
2014 Individual Underwriters:
Kevin Alger, Susan Atkins, Bill Cohen, John Faubion & Warren Thomas, Charles Dell Hamm, Wetherby Asset Management/Karen Leach, S. Chris Shirley, Jan Zivic
2014 Corporate Sponsors:
President’s Circle Level: Scholastic
Benefactor Level: Ketel One Vodka
Patron Level: American Institute of Bisexuality, Barefoot Wine & Bubbly, Barnes & Noble, Harper Perennial, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Macy’s, Penguin Random House
Mentor Level: Chronicle Books, Cleis Press, Riptide Publishing, Samhain Publishing
Friend Level: Arsenal Pulp Press, Bywater Books, Circlet Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, The Feminist Press, Hachette Book Group, Kensington Publishing, Publication Studio, Riverdale Avenue Books/Magnus Books, Seal Press, Simon & Schuster
Gift Bag Sponsors: Galison, The New York Times, Penguin Random House, Wolfe Video
Event and Ticket Information:
The 26th Annual Lambda Literary Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, June 2, 2014 at The Great Hall at Cooper Union (7 East 7th St @ 3rd Ave, New York City). Immediately following the ceremony will be a VIP After-Party presented by Scholastic at The Scholastic Greenhouse & Terrace (557 Broadway between Prince and Spring Streets, New York City).
5:30 P.M.: Cocktail reception
7:00 P.M.: Ceremony
9:30 P.M.: VIP After-Party
Tickets for the Lambda Literary Award ceremony and After-Party can be purchased here.
Finalists of the 26th Annual Lambda Literary Awards can be found here.
2014 Lambda Literary Awards Host Committee
Co-Chairs: Melanie La Rosa, David McConnell, Don Weise
Kevin Alger
John Bateman
Brad Boles
Kevin Brannon
Jamie Brickhouse
Michael Carroll
Paul Dierkes
Dick Donahue
Michael Fauver
Paul Flores
David Gale
Antonio Gonzalez
Tal Goretsky
David Groff
William Johnson
Karl Jones
Mario Lopez-Cordero
Dan Manjovi
Bill Miller
Jay Moore
Jerome Murphy
Nick Nicholson
Angelo Nikolopoulos
Julia Pastore
Lori Perkins
Charles Rice-Gonzalez will serve as Director of this event
Patrick Ryan
Eddie Sarfaty
Liz Scheier
Bob Smith
Jerl Surratt
Jason Wells
Martin Wilson
Jennifer Zivic
See more at: lambdaliterary.org
