My 4.8% Lammy
This actually happened earlier in the month — 3 June 2005, to be precise — but I didn't think of mentioning it until now. I have become an award-winning author: one of my short stories has won 1/22 of a Lambda Literary Award, or Lammy. Let me explain, for those to whom this might be new ground.
I have mentioned before that I write short stories under my pen name Jay Neal (see link above or at right), and that these stories are for the mature gay-male reader (although I branched out last year and wrote a story with a bisexual character, to be published next year). I like writing these — they're challenging and it's satisfying when they come out well. You can read my essay about being a pornographer at Jay Neal's place if you like.
For the past four years (2002 — 2005) I've had stories reprinted in the
Best Gay Erotica series, published by
Cleis Press (and generally available on the shelves in your local mega-bookseller). The series is edited by Richard Labonté, a very good editor to work with. (Richard, by the way, writes the Gay Men's Edition of
Books To Watch Out For; he was nice enough to mention this blog in
a recent issue, bless his heart.) Each annual issue contains some 20 stories selected by a guest editor with Richard's help.
This year's edition, Best Gay Erotica 2005, which was published in December 2004, has stories by 22 authors, including my (Jay Neal's) "Old Haunts". As I put it on the website:
A bear who is haunted by his past and his relationship with his late lover gets some assistance from a bear spiritualist.
It's an allegory about self-acceptance, really. The story concerns a guy who never fit in no matter how much he tried, and thought he had it made when he got hitched to a harrowingly A-gay partner who later died in a freak electrolysis accident. ("One moment he thought his life would end because of some stray hair on his shoulder, and the next moment it did.") The protagonist "lets himself go" and ultimately rediscovers and redefines himself, finding new friends among bears (of the big, hairy, gay-men variety). He starts dating and is frustrated when his dead lover starts haunting him, appearing only when he's about to do the nasty with his dates and making disparaging remarks. The situation is finally sorted out with the help of a Bear Spiritualist ("Why Settle for a Medium when You Could Have an Extra-Large?"). The scene in which the ghost of the dead lover spontaneously combusts during an orgy is a personal favorite of mine.
Now, the
Lambda Literary Foundation each year gives a batch of awards, known as "Lammies", to recognize and promote excellence in Gay and Lesbian literature:
The Lambda Literary Awards recognize and honor the best in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender literature. From hundreds of books nominated by their publishers and other authorized agents, five nominees were selected in each of 20 categories. Panels of judges in each category, chosen to represent the diversity of the LGBT literary community, determined the final winner from the finalists.
It's a nice thing to get if one happens to be a gay or lesbian author.
Anyway,
this year's Lammy in the "Erotica" category went to
Best Gay Erotica 2005; previous editions (in which I also had a story) have been nominated, but none has won before.
So this year I share, along with 21 of my co-authors, a Lambda Literary Award, Richard Labonté accepting. It was a nice surprise, and gratifying, too.
on Thursday, 30 June 2005 at 03.06
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Congratulations!