The message from the recent Lambda Literary Awards in New
York City is that queer Canadian authors rock. On May 27, four writers took
home prizes from the ceremony that celebrates the best in lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender books published the previous year.
The names of queer Canadians were sprinkled liberally through Lambda’s list of finalists, which was announced in March.
Vancouver author Amber Dawn won the Lesbian Debut
Fiction award for Sub Rosa (Arsenal Pulp
Press).
Zoe Whittall won in the new Transgender Fiction category for
her novel Holding Still for as Long as Possible (House of Anansi
Press).
Anna Swanson took home the Lesbian Poetry Award for her
collection The Nights Also (Tightrope Books).
S Bear Bergman and Kate Bornstein received the award for
best LGBT Anthology for Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation (Seal
Press).This year has been literary windfall for Bergman and Bornstein. In April
they were awarded a special prize for LGBT non-fiction for Gender Outlaws at the
Publishing Triangle Awards held in New York City.
The judges applauded the anthology, saying that it “celebrates gender-nonconforming people in all their beauty,
humanity and complexity. The contributors to this book
confront gender issues with such vibrant, mind-expanding style that readers are
urged to question the status quo of seeing gender in binary ways.”
Bergman is a regular contributor to Xtra. His latest article explored queer and trans parenting.
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