Jacqueline Woodson & Jeanette Winterson to be Honored at the 29th Lammy Awards
Author: Edit Team
April 25, 2017
JACQUELINE WOODSON AND JEANETTE WINTERSON TO BE HONORED
AT THE 29TH ANNUAL LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS
Stellar Roster of Presenters Include Cynthia Nixon, AM Homes, Cleve Jones, Eileen Myles, Saeed Jones, Frank Bruni, Ana Castillo, Masha Gessen, Taylor Mac
Legendary Performer Mx Justin Vivian Bond as Emcee
Lambda Literary is pleased to announce that Jacqueline Woodson will receive Lambda’s Visionary Award and Jeanette Winterson will receive the Trustee Award at the 29th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (“Lammys”). Woodson and Winterson will be honored along with the winning authors of 23 separate LGBTQ literary categories as determined by over 75 judges. The Lammys bring together over 500 attendees, sponsors, and celebrities to celebrate excellence in LGBTQ literature, making it the most glamorous and prestigious LGBTQ literary event in the world. The awards will be hosted for the first time by Mx Justin Vivian Bond on Monday, June 12 in New York City at the NYU Skirball Center for Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place, New York, NY 10012). The red carpet and exclusive VIP cocktail reception begin at 5:30 pm followed by the ceremony at 7:00 pm. An after-party at Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012) will immediately follow the ceremony
Cynthia Nixon to introduce Jacqueline Woodson for the Visionary Award
Jacqueline Woodson, the Visionary Award honoree, is the 2014 National Book Award Winner for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor Award, the NAACP Image Award and the Sibert Honor Award. Woodson’s latest novel, Another Brooklyn, a finalist for the National Book Award, is also nominated for the Lambda Literary Award. Woodson was recently named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She is the author of more than two dozen award-winning books for adults, young adults and children; Woodson will be introduced by Emmy, Tony and Grammy Award-winner Cynthia Nixon. Nixon is currently starring on Broadway in the revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. She has appeared in plays and films by such varied and distinguished directors as Sidney Lumet, Alan J. Pakula, Milos Forman and Robert Altman. Nixon starred as Miranda Hobbes in HBO’s celebrated seriesSex and the City, a role that garnered her the first of her two Emmy Awards.
AM Homes to introduce Jeanette Winterson for Lambda Literary’s Trustee Award
Jeanette Winterson, the honoree for the Trustee Award, is the author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit which she wrote at age 24. She’s written many novels and short stories, and received numerous awards for her work, including the EM Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She won a BAFTA for her TV adaptation of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. She is published internationally, and by Grove Press in the USA. Winterson will be introduced by AM Homes, the author of ten books most recently the memoir The Mistress’s Daughter and the award winning novel, May We Be Forgiven. She teaches at Princeton University and is on the Board of The New York Foundation for The Arts, Poets and Writers, and is Co-Chair of the Board of Directors at Yaddo.
“The extraordinary work of this year’s special honorees, Jeanette Winterson and Jacqueline Woodson, has made a deep impact, not just on LGBTQ culture, but on American and British culture, inspiring readers and writers on both sides of the Atlantic,” said Tony Valenzuela, executive director. “We are privileged to celebrate their tremendous contributions at this year’s Lammy Awards.”
Emcee Mx Justin Vivian Bond
Mx Justin Vivian Bond is a trans-genre artist living in New York City. As a performer both on and Off-Broadway, Mx Bond has received numerous accolades winning an Obie (2001), a Bessie (2004), a Tony nomination (2007), the Ethyl Eichelberger Award (2007), The Peter Reed Foundation Grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant for Artists. V authored the Lambda Literary Award winning memoir Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels.
Confirmed Lammy Presenters (in alphabetical order):
Theater performance artist, activist and educator Heather Acs; New York Times columnist Frank Bruni; Ana Castillo, Chicana poet, novelist and essayist; pro-sex pioneer Betty Dodson; New York Councilman Daniel Dromm; outspoken Russian-American journalist, author and translator Masha Gessen; Keelay Gipson, filmmaker, performer, and playwright; Poet and Judith Markowitz Award for Emerging LGBTQ Writers winner JP Howard; Cleve Jones, AIDS and LGBTQ activist and author; Saeed Jones, poet and executive editor at Buzzfeed; virtuoso performance artist Taylor Mac; rock star poet Eileen Myles; comedian and writer Tig Notaro; Carl Phillips, poet and two-time Lammy Award winner; Ariel Schrag, cartoonist, television writer and novelist; writer and photographer Meredith Talusan; “weird queer comedy babe” Jes Tom; Vivek Tiwary, bestselling author and Tony Award-winning producer; Mitchell Waters, literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd.; and comedian and educator Karen Williams.
Additional celebrity presenters will be announced in May.
“Our presenters reflect the core of what we celebrate-the marvelous diversity of the LGBTQ literature community,” said Lambda Literary Board President KG MacGregor. “Whether in books or cartoons, on the stage or in the press, our voices have a place.”
2017 Corporate Sponsors to date:
Gold Level: HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Macy’s
Silver Level: Barnes & Noble, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Target Cue
Friend Level: Arsenal Pulp Press, Atria Books, Bureau of General Services Queer Division, Chronicle Books, Kensington Publishing, University of Wisconsin Press
Champion Underwriters: The Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency, John Faubion & Warren Thomas, John Rochester & Lawrence Fodor, KG MacGregor, Kay Percy
Partner Underwriters: David Groff & Clay Williams, Eddie Sarfaty & Court Stroud, S. Chris Shirley, Cheryl Traverse, Tony Valenzuela & Rob Ferrante
Event and Ticket Information:
The 29th Annual Lambda Literary Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, June 12th, 2017 at the NYU Skirball Center for Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place, New York, NY 10012). The Red Carpet and exclusive VIP cocktail reception begin at 5:30 pm followed by the ceremony at 7 pm. An After-Party at Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012) will immediately follow the ceremony.
5:30 pm: Red Carpet & VIP Cocktail reception at NYU Skirball Center
7:00 pm: Ceremony at NYU Skirball Center
9:30 pm: After-Party at Le Poisson Rouge
Tickets for the Lambda Literary Award VIP cocktail reception, ceremony and after-party can be purchased via here.
Finalists of the 29th Annual Lambda Literary Awards can be found here.
2017 Lambda Literary Awards New York Host Committee: Co-Chairs: David Groff, Rakesh Satyal, Amy Scholder. Members: Angelo Nikolopoulos, Ann Aptaker, Anna deVries, Antonio Gonzalez, Ben Hyman, Brian Alessandro, Cathy Renna, Chris Shirley, Christian Trimmer, Damon Suede, David Gale, David Shane, Diana Cage, Elizabeth Koke, Frederick McKindra, Jamie Brickhouse, Jason Wells, Jeremy Sorese, Karen Schechner, Ken Geist, Lori Perkins, Martin Wilson, Michael Carroll, Michele Karlsberg, Parrish Turner, Paul Florez, Paul Whitlatch, Rocco Staino, Serkan Gorkemli, Stephen Morrison, Zack Phillips
