I was just minding my own business trying to be good and not laughing at Lambda Lit in public and they turn around and start changing the rules again. I am sure everyone will believe their books are being judged fairly and impartially now that they have switched the rules back. Yeah that will work since they always have acted so professionally right.

I posed a query to Erastes (which is not allowed; she/he banned me from her/his blog immediately after because one does not question the legitimacy of these writers or one will be smited with a dirty mirkin). I now pose the same to Lee Rowan: Let’s see an actual list of how many books you’ve sold. Eliza claimed to have read 1,553 M/M novels. (I told her that she might have less of a language problem if she were reading something less low-brow, but that was probably mean of me.) So if Eliza bought 1,553 and six of them were your books (don’t worry, this won;t be a difflcult math problem), Rowan, then you made at least $6 off of poor Eliza (another literary reference, but I don’t want to get too far off track here).

Wow, Lambda Literary is running a wonderful professional blog these days. Filled with intelligent well researched commentary.

UPDATE!

I just wanted to point out two things here.

1) How can you accuse another lesbian of “appropriation” and question their authenticity for writing Gay Romance when you yourself write Gay Porn?

2) So Lee Rowan & any other lesbians make enough writing “Gay Romance” for you to call them out on the Lambda Literary Blog but they do not sell enough to be considered your peers or to have their opinions held in equal measure?

Um yeah…

First of all, Lambda Literary is an LGBT literary magazine. We’ve been around now for several decades. We aren’t just some fly-by-night fan fic site or someone’s livejournal blog.

I love this shit. If you cannot back your craptastic article up with supporting documentation and like real facts start publicly attacking and name calling a well known online promoter who supports Gay Male Authors.

Oh, and make sure we all know you speak for Lambda Literary and the Gay Male Literary Community as a whole so we know how much reverence to give your nut job analysis.

I can tell Lambda Literary is going to have a fun time fixing this mess. Dig that hole deeper!

Congrats to…

The Golden Age Of Gay Fiction
From: MLR Press

Erastes ~ Transgressions
From: Running Press

J.P. Bowie ~ Time After Time
From: MLR Press

I have been following this Lambda Literary Wankfest at length for a reason so let me put my personal point of view in context here.

The very first Gay Romance I ever loved as a young gay man was The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley. A book which is sold as Gay Fiction written by a “straight woman”. The very first eBooks I ever bought and loved were Out There In The Night by Laura Baumbach and The Tin Star by J.L. Langley which are now in print and available even in Gay Bookstores as Gay Fiction sold right alongside such Gay Fiction classics as The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren or The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White.

Now “M/M” is usually defined as (read by women and written by women) although I have seen the term “straight” used in conjunction with this description in several places.

So…

Victor J. Banis one of the pioneers of Gay Fiction weighed in against the changed mission statement and guidelines.

Brent Hartinger a Lambda Award winner (Split Screen: Attack Of The Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride Of The Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies) weighed in against the changed mission statement and guidelines.

Lee Thomas a Lambda Award winner (The Dust Of Wonderland) weighed in against the changed mission statement and guidelines.

Now these guys obviously represent Gay Fiction, Gay Horror and Gay YA in regards to the award winners. Their commentary on the Lambda Literary Awards was treated with respect as “Gay Writers” giving their opinions. Whenever I saw posts by anyone who writes Gay Romance they were immediately labeled “Women M/M Romance Writers” and subsequently negated as a whole by detractors as “straight women and/or pandering to a straight audience” which follows along with my “M/M” definition given above.

So this brings up my questions…

Are all “M/M” writers straight? Are all “M/M” writers women? Is the “M/M” label even valid anymore due to all the myths surrounding it?
Is constantly branding Gay Fiction, or more to the point, Gay Romance as “M/M” creating a misrepresentation of not only the content but also the writers, the audience, and the purpose? Are even the Gay Retailers indicating the “M/M” label is inappropriate for their use?

I am just saying that J.L. Langley’s The Tin Star was a bestseller over at A Different Light in 2008 and the shelf it was on was not labeled “M/M” just Gay Fiction. Marion Zimmer Bradley had no intention in publishing The Catch Trap for it to be only read by women straight or otherwise.

Here is his entire comment he made over on The Little Lost Lamb(da)s –Some thoughts by Victor J. Banis

Deacon Maccubbin
September 30th, 2009 on 9:43 am

Just to keep the historical record clear, when I founded the Lambda Literary Awards in 1988, they were specifically intended to honor “the writers, editors and publishers of gay and lesbian literature”. There was no litmus test of the sexual or affectional orientation of those writers, editors and publishers. It was only necessary that a nominated book be of interest to gays and lesbians (and, later, to bisexuals and transgenders as additional categories were added). That was true for the first five years of the Lammy Awards. I believe it was true even after we turned the awards program over to the new non-profit Lambda Literary Foundation; I don’t know at what point the criteria might have changed, but I think it would be wise to return to the original vision.

Also, in those heady early years of the Lammys, they were definitely not New York-centric. The awards program was developed in Washington DC under the auspices of the Lambda Book Report and Lambda Rising Bookstores. It was built on the extensive framework of more than 200 glbt and lesbian feminist bookstores that then existed around the country, who helped gather nominations and also provided a large number of the judges, chosen in part for their geographical representation as well as their experience in the literary marketplace. That’s the way the Lammys operated over its first five years under my guidance and, I believe, for some years after. But I have not been actively involved with the Foundation in recent years, haven’t been able to even attend the Lammy Awards for several years, and have no insight into its current operations.

The awards guidelines from 2008 state: In determining whether a book should be nominated, consider that the Lambda Literary Awards are based principally on the quality of the writing and the LGBT content of the work. The sexual orientation of the author is secondary.

Webarchive of site from 2008

Now: The Lambda Literary Foundation is dedicated to raising the status of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives.

The awards guidelines now state: As such, it should be noted that the Lambda Literary Awards are based principally on the LGBT content, the gender orientation/identity of the author, and the literary merit of the work.

Current page

PS… Current comment of the week winner is on Lee Thomas (a Lambda Award winner) who posted about this mess.

possumqueen
Clive Barker… poor guy, he just can’t compete in the mainstream. ;)

Victor J. Banis ~ Spine Intact, Some Creases
From: Borgo Press

If I was to look for the most “informed opinion” on the whole Lambda Literary Foundation wankfest. I think I would look to someone who is not only a gay writer but also a gay writer who actually lived the real world discrimination and the real world prejudice of the tough times. The real tough times, you know, like in the 50s and 60s when they could arbitrarily put a gay man in prison for simply writing what were considered by law offensive books about gay people. Such a person would almost certainly be someone I consider pretty dang clear headed and straight forward in their take on such things Gay Literary being that they helped contribute so much to the forming of that genre to begin with. They would also probably have some clue what the purpose of those LLF awards were supposed to be originally.

That person would be Victor J. Banis who just wrote about this matter.

My favorite part and one I can agree with whole heartedly…

Hmm. Just like the U.S. Military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy. You can be queer and serve in our armed forces so long as you’re willing to pretend to be heterosexual. And, yes, you can be a heterosexual woman and submit to the Lammies, so long as we all understand that you are declaring yourself to be queer. And they wonder why folks don’t hold them in greater respect?

I do have to say Victor is someone I respect and admire and someone who had to handle far more fear and hate in our recent past than I have had to. Sure I faced ten years of discrimination while serving in our military but even I cannot begin to imagine walking in those Victor J. Banis shoes. They are mighty big, so ignore my new comer opinion all you want but give respect where it is due.

I know Lambda Literary will ignore Victor. They always have and most likely will continue to do so because they want to control what is considered Gay Lit and how it is narrowly defined by their insular politics. I don’t have to buy their opinion though and you don’t have to either because now there is the Internet and growing access to eBooks and with all that the freedom to read and hear what one of the Pioneers of our gay literary history actually has to say.

Oh and be sure to pick up Victor’s new biography.

Something is wrong
Gary Numan ~ We Take Mystery (To Bed)

I just read the Katherine Forrest self serving explanation for the change of policy over at Lambda Literary Foundation.

We also took into consideration the despair of our own writers when a heterosexual writer, who has written a fine book about us, wins a Lambda Award, when one or more of our own LGBT writers may have as a Finalist a book that may be the only chance in a career at a Lambda Literary Award.

Translation: The fags hate losing to you straight fuckers who “write about us”. That’s “our own” gig for “our own” writers and we hate having to try to be as talented and creative as Annie Proulx is so we figured out how to make it easier to rig this thing.

It is more difficult to be an LGBT writer now than it has been in many decades, more difficult to make any income from our written words, much less a living. Publishers have closed, stores have closed, the markets seem to be shrinking with each passing day.

Translation: None of the “gay” writers on our board can seem to get published and who wants to have to get a real job? So we all decided to try to milk this stupid award thingy for all it’s worth since all we do is hang around at the office and mooch food out of the employee fridge.

We celebrate those who support our writers, those in all the allied areas of our literature: our readers, publishers, booksellers, publicists, agents, etc. We celebrate straight allies of every kind and always have throughout our history, with the Bridge Builder Award, Small Press Award, Publishers Service Award, Editor’s Choice Award, among other awards and acknowledgments, and we’ll continue to do so.

Translation: We are only discriminating against those straight writers trying to steal our “gay” stories from us damn them! All you straight publishers are totally rockin and always welcome and we’ll slide you a kiss ass award anytime you publish one of us here at the LLF office.

We take the nomination of any book at face value: if the book is nominated as LGBT, then the author is self-identifying as part of our LGBT family of writers, and that is all that is required. There are many permutations of LGBT and they’re all welcome as that LGBT term we’ve all adopted makes clear.

Translation: Of course we will continue to rip you off accept your entry money just remember we will be giving the award to one of our chosen acceptable “gay” writers anyway. It’s not like this award is an actual competition anymore… Got it? No more level playing field, just backroom politics from now on. Do we need to spell out BREEDERS NOT WELCOME in bigger letters?