LGBT Literature Needs Your Support! Donate $10, $25, $50 or more to the “Lambda Literary Review” and Make a Difference Today!

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Edit Team in Features, Foundation Updates

The Lambda Literary Review is the world’s most comprehensive online literary magazine covering lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books and authors. Published by the Lambda Literary Foundation, LLR receives over 50,000 new and returning visitors each month, connecting a brilliantly diverse community of readers, writers, agents, booksellers, editors, educators, distributors, librarians, bloggers, and more, by offering weekly book reviews, author interviews, insightful commentary on current happenings in the LGBT literary scene, and pertinent op-ed entries on an endless variety of current issues pressing our community.
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Amazon.com Renews $25,000 Grant to Lambda Literary’s Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates

Amazon.com Renews $25,000 Grant to Lambda Literary’s Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices

Amazon continues its support for next generation of LGBT literary stars

Lambda Literary Foundation, the country’s leading national nonprofit organization for the LGBT literary community, is pleased to announce the renewal of a grant of $25,000 from Amazon.com for a fourth year in a row, a continuation of Amazon.com’s support for the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices. This year’s Retreat will be held July 28th through August 4th, 2013 in Los Angeles.
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LLF Announces Finalists of the 25th Annual Lambda Literary Awards

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates

25th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced 

Early Bird Gala Tickets On-Sale Now

Finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards were announced today by the Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF) in Los Angeles. Books from major mainstream publishers, from academic presses, from both long-established and new LGBT publishers, as well as from emerging publish-on-demand technologies, make up the 687 submissions for the “Lammys.” The finalists were selected from a record number of submissions, and, for the first time, the judges were encouraged to choose more finalists in those categories that drew a large number of submissions.

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Outwrite! A Celebration of Los Angeles LGBT Literary Pioneers

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates

OUTWRITE!

A Celebration of Los Angeles LGBT Literary Pioneers

in honor of Lambda Literary Foundation’s 25^th Anniversary

Pioneers honored for their lifetime contribution to literature include:

Malcolm Boyd, Lillian Faderman, Katherine V. Forrest,

John Rechy and Patricia Nell Warren

Program includes a rare West Coast performance by Justin Vivian Bond;

Celebrations of each of the honorees

from the worlds of entertainment, arts and letters

Saturday, April 27 at 7 PM 

West Hollywood Public Library

in the West Hollywood City Council Chamber 

The Lambda Literary Foundation is proud to  announce OUTWRITE!, a special celebration of Los Angeles LGBT literary pioneers – Malcolm Boyd, Lillian Faderman, Katherine V. Forrest, John Rechy and Patricia Nell Warren –to be held on Saturday, April 27, at the West Hollywood Public Library. The evening, marking the 25th anniversary of the organization, begins at 7 PM. A catered reception in the forecourt of the library begins at 6 PM. This celebration is being made possible through the generous support of the City of West Hollywood. (more…)

Monica Carter Named LGBT Writers in Schools Program Coordinator

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates

Writer, educator, and activist Monica Carter has been named LLF’s LGBT Writers in Schools Program Coordinator. Having spearheaded the Foundation’s newest program as a volunteer for the past year and a half, Monica Carter, as an LLF staff member, will be responsible for organizing author visits to high school and university literature classes, facilitating the popular My Story Book Club for young adults, and leading the development of the program and the Foundation in an exciting expansion of its mission: working with young people to promote LGBT literature. (more…)

International Study on LGBT Reading Preferences

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates

What type of books do LGBT people like to read? How and where do they find the books that they like to read? Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF) and St. Cloud State University Collection Management Librarian Rachel Wexelbaum are conducting an international study on the book reading preferences of 21st century LGBT people to help answer these questions. (more…)

2013 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates

The Lambda Literary Foundation is proud to announce details for the 2013 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices, the nation’s premier queer writers residency. The Retreat will be held July 28 – August 4, 2013 on the campus of the American Jewish University (AJU) in Los Angeles.

Faculty members include Samuel R. Delany teaching the Fiction workshop, Sarah Schulman teaching the Nonfiction workshop, David Groff teaching the Poetry workshop, and Malinda Lo teaching both Genre Fiction and Young Adult Fiction. See faculty bios below.

“The emerging writers who attend LLF’s Retreat represent the future of LGBT literature,” said LLF Executive Director, Tony Valenzuela. “We are incredibly fortunate to be working with an extraordinary group of faculty once again who will challenge and mentor these up-and-coming authors to the next step of their professional careers.”

The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices was established in 2007 and is the first of its kind ever offered to LGBT writers: a one-week intensive immersion in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. The retreat is an unparalleled opportunity to learn from the very best writers in the LGBT community.

Applicants of the Retreat submit twenty pages of fiction/nonfiction or 10 pages of poetry that are evaluated for craft, creativity and originality. Twelve students per workshop are accepted into the competitive program where they spend the week working on their manuscripts and attending guest lectures by publishing industry professionals. Ability to pay is in no way part of the decision-making process and scholarships are available. The LLF Writers Retreat Fellows have gone on to publish an impressive array of works. The Writers Retreat is made possible, in part, by a generous contribution by Amazon.com.

APPLY TODAY

2013 FACULTY BIOS 

FICTION WORKSHOP – SAMUEL R. DELANY

Samuel R. Delany

Samuel Delany’s stories are available in Aye and Gomorrah and other stories and Atlantis: Three Tales. His novels include Nova, Dhalgren, Hogg,The Mad Man, the Stonewall Award-winning Dark Reflections, and-most recently-Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His nonfiction collections includeSilent Interviews, Longer Views, Shorter Views, andTimes Square Red/Times Square Blue.  His award-winning autobiography is The Motion of Light in Water. A judge for the 2010 National Book Awards, he was the subject of a 2007 documentary, The Polymath.He is the author of About Writing and his interview in the Paris Review‘s “Art of Fiction” series appeared in the spring 2012. He lives in New York City and teaches creative writing at Temple University.

GENRE FICTION AND YOUNG ADULT FICTION WORKSHOP – MALINDA LO

Malinda Lo

Malinda Lo is the author of Adaptation, a YA sci-fi thriller; the sequel will be published in fall 2013. Her first novel, Ash, a retelling of Cinderella with a lesbian twist, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Fantasy and Science Fiction, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. Her second novel, Huntress, a companion novel to Ash, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. She lives in Northern California with her partner and their dog.

NONFICTION WORKSHOP – SARAH SCHULMAN

Sarah Schulman is the author of the novels: The Mere Future, The Child, Shimmer, Empathy, Rat Bohemia, People In Trouble, After Delores, Girls Visions and Everything, The Sophie Horowitz Story and the nonfiction books My American History:Lesbian and Gay Life During The Reagan/Bush Years, Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS and the Marketing of Gay America, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, Israel/Palestine and the Queer International, the plays: Carson McCullers, Manic Flight Reaction and the stage adaptation of IB Singer’s Enemies, a Love Story, and the films The Owls and Mommy is Coming. She is co-producer of UNITED IN ANGER: A History of ACT UP. Her awards include: Guggenheim (Playwriting), Fulbright (Judaic Studies), 3 NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowships (Playwriting and Fiction), 2 American Library Association Book Awards (Fiction and Nonfiction), the Kessler Prize for Sustained Contribution to LGBT Studies.

She is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island

Sarah Schulman

and a Fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University and the Bonham Center for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. Sarah organized the first US tour of Queer Palestinian Leaders and the first US LGBT Delegation to Palestine. She is co-founder of the ACT UP Oral History Project and MIX: NY Queer Experimental Film and Video Festival, now in its 25th year.

POETRY WORKSHOP – DAVID GROFF

David Groff

David Groff’s new book Clay was chosen by Michael Waters as winner of the Louise Bogan Award and is being published this year by Trio House Press. His previous collection, Theory of Devolution, was selected by Mark Doty for the National Poetry Series and was nominated for the Lambda Literary and Publishing Triangle awards. With Philip Clark he is co-editor of Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS (Alyson)and with Jim Elledge he co-edited Who’s Yer Daddy? Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners, just published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

David’s poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Chicago Review, Court Green, Georgia Review, Inkwell, The Iowa Review,Margie, Mead, Phat’itude, Poetry, and other magazines. He has received residencies and fellowships from The Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, the Hall Farm Center, Hidden River Arts Foundation, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Ragdale, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the Saltonstall Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Wildacres Retreat. David received an A.B. from Princeton and an M.F.A. and M.A. from the University of Iowa. An independent book editor and literary scout-and with Jameson Fitzpatrick an editor of the Lambda Literary Poetry Spotlight-he has taught at NYU and Rutgers University and with the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Since 2007 he has taught in the M.F.A. Graduate Creative Writing Program at the City College of New York.

Nominations & Guidelines for the James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize & the Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates

JAMES DUGGINS OUTSTANDING MID-CAREER NOVELIST PRIZE

The Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize is presented annually at the Lambda Literary Awards ceremony.  The award, made possible by James Duggins, PhD, consists of two cash prizes of $5000.  The awards will be presented to two LGBT-identified authors. Age is not a determining factor. The award recognizes LGBT content of importance to the LGBT community and with LGBT authors who have written and published at least three novels, or two novels and substantial additional literary work such as poetry, short stories, or essays.

GUIDELINES: MID-CAREER PRIZE  

DR. BETTY BERZON EMERGING WRITER AWARD

The Emerging Writer Award will be presented annually at the Lambda Literary Award ceremony. The award, made possible by Teresa DeCrescenzo, consists of two cash prizes of $1000. The awards will be presented to two LGBT-identified authors.  Age is not a determining factor. The award will recognize LGBT content of importance to the LGBT community and with emergent LGBT authors who have written and published at least one but not more than two books (fiction or nonfiction). If only one book has been published, additional literary work such as short stories or essays will be considered to substantiate an author’s potential for a promising career.

GUIDELINES: EMERGING WRITER AWARD

About James Duggins, PhD:   

A U.S. Navy Journalist in the Pacific (Korean War), Jim studied with James Michener and Bill Lederer.  He graduated from San Francisco State, and received his PhD from UC Berkeley. He taught English and Speech at high school and community college, and retired as a professor from San Francisco State.  He is co-author of Hooked on Books (Berkley Books), compiled Teaching Reading for Human Values (Charles Merrill), and has written many articles for academic journals (The English Journal, The Journal of Reading, Wilson Library Journal,); his memoir, A Rock and a Hard Place, appeared in Love, Castro Street: Reflections of San Francisco (Alyson Press, 2007). He now writes fiction full time and his love of history has produced the historical novels The Power: A Novel of Voodoo, and Slave Stealer, the first of a five-novel series. He divides his time between the desert in southern California and his house in Mexico where he collects Mexican Folk Art and is a regular contributor to museums around the United States.

About Dr. Betty Berzon:

Dr. Betty Berzon (1928 – 2006) was an author and psychotherapist renown for her work with the LGBT community. She was among the first psychotherapists to assist gay and lesbian clients. After coming out as a lesbian in 1968, she began providing therapy to gays and lesbians, and in 1971, she helped found the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center as well as an organization of gays and lesbians within the American Psychiatric Association, which declassified homosexuality as a mental illness two years later.

Berzon temporarily attended Stanford University before enrolling in UCLA in 1952 and graduating in 1957. She then obtained her master’s degree from San Diego State University in 1962.

Dr. Berzon’s books included Positively Gay (1979), Permanent Partners (1988), and The Intimacy Dance (1996). Berzon also wrote a personal memoir, Surviving Madness, a Therapist’s Own Story (2002) in which she discussed her previous suicide attempt and institutionalization. The book received a Lambda Literary Award in memoir. For many years, she wrote an advice column on gay relationships for PlanetOut.com.

Berzon was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1986. She was treated by mastectomy and her cancer remained in remission for many years. The cancer returned in 2001, and Berzon died on January 24, 2006. She is survived by Teresa DeCrescenzo, the founder of Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services, whom Berzon met in 1973 and married during a mass wedding ceremony at the 1993 March on Washington.

Dr. Betty Berzon held a lifelong passion for literature. Through this award, she wanted to ensure the support of emerging LGBT writers beyond her lifetime.

About Teresa DeCrescenzo:

Teresa DeCrescenzo, MSW, is a graduate of the USC School of Social Work, which honored her with its Most Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1991. She is also the Founder of the first residential program for LGBT youth in foster care in the country (Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services). Terry was named Social Worker of the Year by NASW in 1990. In 1995, she was named Outstanding Administrator, while in 2005, she was given the “Pioneer Award” by the Child Welfare League of America. Terry was recognized with the Knee-Whitman Award in 2007 for her national impact on mental health policy, and was inducted into the NASW Hall of Distinction in October 2012. Among her publications is the book,Helping Gay and Lesbian Youth: New Policies, New Programs. Terry is the Director of Social Services at a large acute-care hospital and is adjunct faculty at California State University, Northridge.

Support the Lambda Literary Foundation with a Year-End Tax-Deductible Donation

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates

Support the Lambda Literary Foundation Today with a Year-End Tax-Deductible Donation by December 31!

As the end of the year approaches here at Lambda Literary, we reflect on our achievements of 2012 all of which have been made possible because of you, our dedicated supporters. (more…)

Contribute to the Lambda Literary Foundation Fall Membership Drive

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Tony Valenzuela in Foundation Updates, News

In 2013, the Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF) turns silver.

For 25 years LLF has been a lifeboat carrying the precious cargo of the stories of our lives, our struggles and our aspirations to new generations of LGBT readers. Since 1989 LLF has promoted, honored, and preserved LGBT literature in a publishing climate where our voices have often been ignored, rejected or marginalized. (more…)