2009 Lammy Book Award finalists announced: Bisexual category doubles this year

The Lambda Literary Awards, known as the "Lammys," announced their finalists for all 23 book awards today, including those for the Bisexual categories.

This year, the Bisexual category, which has been one catch-all category (for fiction, non-fiction, biography, memoir, anthology, bisexual studies, erotica, poetry & plays) since it was instituted in 2006, was split into two: Bisexual Fiction and Bisexual Non-Fiction, after all the nominations came in, due to the unexpectedly high number of  nominations for each category.

In past years, judges for the Bisexual book category have commented that it's very difficult comparing fiction to non-fiction. " It's like trying to compare apples to oranges,"  judges have said. Having both a fiction and non-fiction category could make that job easier.

Lambda Literary Foundation, the non-profit organization that puts on the Lammys, had set the bar for a category split at 10 nominations each for Bisexual Fiction and Bisexual Non-Fiction before the Bisexual category could be split into two. This year we met the bar and achieved our goal of 20 nominations evenly split. We hope that the two Bisexual category policy can be solidified and made standard for every year so that more bisexual books and authors can be honored. The judges jobs would be made easier as well.

The first 18 years of the Lambda Literary Awards had no Bisexual category at all, even though there had already been a Transgender category for 10 years. The perception of the LLF Executive Director and the Board was that only two bisexual books were published per year, so a Bisexual category wasn't warranted. Once the Bi Writers Association, with help from BiNetUSA, proved to them that at least 10 bisexual books were published per year, they were willing to add the Bisexual category to their list of awards.

This is the first year, of the four years the Bisexual category has been in existence, that we have had 10 finalists, instead of five, and will have two winners, instead of one.

The Bisexual Lammy Award finalists for bisexual books published in 2009 are:

Bisexual Nonfiction

• Byron in Love: A Short Daring Life, by Edna O'Brien (W. W. Norton)
• Cheever: A Life, by Blake Bailey (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Leaving India: My Family's Journey From Five Villages to Five Continents, by Minal Hajratwala (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Map, by Audrey Beth Stein (Lulu.com)
• Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer, by Emanuel Levy (St. Martin's Press)

Bisexual Fiction

• Arusha, by J.E. Knowles (Spinsters Ink)
• Holy Communion, by Mykola Dementiuk (Synergy Press)
• The Janeid, by Bobbie Geary (The Graeae Press)
• Love You Two, by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli (Random House Australia)
• Torn, by Amber Lehman (Closet Case Press)

Finalists are listed in alphabetical order by title. Winners will be announced at the Lammy Awards Ceremony in New York on Thurs May 27 and tickets are available.

Bi Lines III: A Celebration of Bisexual Writing in Reading, Arts & Culture, an event to honor the Bisexual Lammy Award winners, finalists and nominees, will be hosted by the Bi Writers Association the following night on Friday May 28 at the LGBT Community Center, co-sponsored by Lambda Literary Foundation. More info on this event will be posted here as soon as more details are announced.

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