Thanks for the link to Lee Thomas’ post. I hadn’t seen that one, and I agree with him that whatever else the decision achieves for the LLAs, it will certainly reduce their status as awards for literary quality. Which is a little counterproductive, I think.

Alex,

I just spoke my mind about this because frankly I have been critical of Lambda Literary Foundation award choices in the past so there should be no surprises here.

What really does bug me is the amount of wank being created about this.

I think it is really important to look to people like Victor J. Banis who is a gay man and gay writer who has contributed so much to Gay Fiction or even previous award winners like Lee Thomas for his novel The Dust Of Wonderland.

These people are not “guessing” what the award was “about” or what it “meant in the past” as they either won it or were pioneers of the dang genre.

Even Katherine Forrest the group’s president in her own letter admits that “straight” authors have won or been nominated for the award in the past so this is a very substantial change of direction. Not just a clarification of something that has always been in place unless you always secretly wondered if there was a “good old boy” network in place. Something the lesbians obviously decided “was there” and went to create their own award

Not a single person is arguing “if” the Lambda Literary Foundation “can” change it’s direction. They “have” and they “did”.
People are just pointing out that direction is backwards and not appropriate to meet the needs of promoting Gay Fiction in a positive way.

Oh Teddy, I’ve suddenly conceived a huge and entirely platonic love for you. You rock!

I don’t have a lot of say as to whether my book gets entered for the Lammies. I’ve asked my publishers not to submit it, but who knows if they’ll listen? But having said that, the LLF can do what they want with their award, and I honestly don’t care. What does disturb me most is the level of misogyny going on. Why is everyone acting as though the m/m romance genre is all about straight women writing for straight women, when in my experience the genre is full of GBLT authors of all sorts and straight authors of varying degrees of queerness, and is read by LGBT people of all sorts and straight readers of varying degrees of queerness. I think that’s something to celebrate, myself, and maybe you’re right and I should stop being so apologetic about my right to be here :)

They’re idiots.

And to whomever said ‘it doesn’t matter in sales’ .. yeah, it does, to libraries and many bookstores. But for small-press folks who don’t get into bookstores, not so much.

IMO, any literary competition that has 3 criteria and lists the quality of the writing last is going at the issue ass-backwards.

I can support positive reinforcement for culturally marginalized members of society who receive so little recognition, but this is not how Lambda seems to be promoting this award.

They can run their circus any way they want I am just pointing out the fleas.

It’s the same thing I feel about RWA and eBook Authors. Know what they are about before handing them a penny because they may end up not providing the support you are looking for.