ROXANE GAY AND EDMUND WHITE TO BE HONORED

AT THE 30th ANNUAL LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS 

Stellar Roster of Presenters Include Alan Cumming, Alison Bechdel, Rebecca Solnit, Pamela Sneed, Michael Nava, Katherine Forrest, Carmelita Tropicana, and more…

Legendary Comedian Kate Clinton to Emcee

Lambda Literary, the nation’s oldest and largest literary arts organization advancing LGBTQ literature, is pleased to announce that Edmund White will receive Lambda’s Visionary Award and Roxane Gay will receive the Trustee Award at the 30^th Annual Lambda Literary Awards (“Lammys”).

White and Gay will be honored along with the winning authors of 23 separate LGBTQ literary categories determined by over 65 judges. The Lammys bring together over 500 attendees, sponsors, and celebrities to celebrate excellence in LGBTQ publishing, making it the most glamorous and prestigious LGBTQ literary event in the world.

The awards will be hosted by Kate Clinton on Monday, June 4 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 will 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.

“The contributions of this year’s special honorees, Edmund White and Roxane Gay, have inspired readers and writers around the world,” said Tony Valenzuela, Executive Director. “We are privileged to celebrate their tremendous contributions at this year’s Lammy Awards.”

Alan Cumming to Introduce Edmund White for the Visionary Award

Edmund White, the honoree of the Visionary Award, is the author of some twenty-five books including Genet: A Biography, for which he won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of a groundbreaking trilogy of autobiographical novels-A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, andThe Farewell Symphony. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an officer in the French Order of Arts and Letters, as well as a winner of the France-Amériques award and of the Mondello prize in Sicily. In 2018 he received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. White will be introduced by Tony award-winning actor, Alan Cumming, who currently stars on CBS’s Instinct.

Rebecca Solnit to Introduce Roxane Gay for Lambda Literary’s Trustee Award

Roxane Gay, the honoree of the Trustee Award, is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women and the New York Times bestselling Hunger. Difficult Women and Hunger are both 2018 Lambda Literary Award nominees. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. She has several books forthcoming and is also at work on television and film projects. In 2018 she won a Guggenheim Fellowship. Gay will be introduced by deeply influential feminist author Rebecca Solnit.

Confirmed Lambda Literary Awards Presenters (in alphabetical order):

Alison Bechdel (MacArthur Fellow and award-winning author of Fun Home), Nicole Dennis-Benn (author of Lammy winner Here Comes the Sun) Nancy Bereano (founder and publisher of Firebrand Books), Kate Bornstein (author of Gender Outlaw and celebrated performance artist), Katherine Forrest (author of legendary Kate Delafield series), Rigoberto Gonzalez (Guggenheim and NEA Fellow, author and poet), Michael Nava (author of legendary Henry Rios mystery series), Tommy “Teebs” Pico (poet and author of Junk), Pamela Sneed (poet and author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery and KONG), Alok Vaid-Menon (gender non-conforming writer and performance artist), Carmelita Tropicana (Obie-winning performance artists), and Paula Vogel (Pulitzer Prize winning playwright for How I Learned to Drive).

Additional celebrity presenters will be announced in May.

As part of Lambda’s 30^th Anniversary celebration, The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is hosting an exhibition of 12 portraits of Lambda Literary Award winners and nominees from the 1980s and 1990s. Their images are culled from the over 500 portraits of GLBTQ+ writers and activists photographed by Robert Giard (1939-2002) for his project Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay & Lesbian Writers. (www.robertgiardfoundation.org).

2018 Corporate Sponsors to date:

Gold Level: HarperCollins Publishers, Ketel One Vodka, Macmillan Publishers, Stone Soup Community Press

Silver Level: Hachette Book Group, HBO, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster

Friend Level: Bold Strokes Books, Bureau of General Services Queer Division, Bywater Books, Chronicle Books, YES YES Books

Event and Ticket Information:

The 30th Annual Lambda Literary Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, June 4th, 2018 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 here.

Finalists of the 30^th Annual Lambda Literary Awards can be found at here.

2018 Lambda Literary Awards New York Host Committee:

Chairs: Rakesh Satyal, Amy Scholder; Members: Ann Aptaker, Paul Florez, David Gale, Scott Gerace, Serkan Gorkemli, Antonio Gonzalez, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Amy Hundley, Michele Karlsberg, Elizabeth Koke, Lori Perkins, Adam Rathe, Amy Scholder, David Shane, S. Chris Shirley, Rocco Staino, Karen Schechner, and Jason Wells.

Join the conversation by following the Twitter hashtag #Lammys. Learn more at www.LambdaLiterary.org and connect with us on Facebook andTwitter.

About Lambda Literary

Lambda Literary believes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer literature is fundamental to the preservation of our culture, and that LGBTQ lives are affirmed when our stories are written, published and read. LL’s programs include: the Lambda Literary Awards, the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, LGBTQ Writers in Schools, Lambda LitFest Los Angeles, and our web magazine The Lambda Literary Review at www.LambdaLiterary.org.  For more information call (323) 643-4281 or email admin@lambdaliterary.org

Mark McArthur, Citizen Relations

mark.mcarthur@citizenrelations.com

(212) 613-4964