Reading List · LGBTQ fiction
The Lambda Literary Awards, known as the Lammys, honour books with LGBTQ themes published in English and available in the United States. They are presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation and were first given in 1989, for books published in 1988. Gay Fiction and Lesbian Fiction are two of the longest-running of the 26 categories. Eligibility depends on a book’s LGBTQ content rather than on the identity of its author.
By Lisanne Swart · 43 winners since 2006 · Gay Fiction and Lesbian Fiction · All literary prizes · Last reviewed 28 October 2026
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Quick answer
The Lambda Literary Awards (Lammys) are annual American awards for LGBTQ books, run by the Lambda Literary Foundation since 1989. In 2026 the Gay Fiction award went to Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter and the Lesbian Fiction award to Hungerstone by Kat Dunn.
How this page chooses
The timeline at the top lists every winner for Gay Fiction and Lesbian Fiction, all 43 of them. The latest fifteen have their own entry further down, oldest first; the titles in the timeline that you can click are those.
Under each book is a line of plain fact about the book or its author, and nothing that cannot be checked.
Oldest first. The line in red is a fact about the book or its author, not an opinion about it.
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Jonny, a two-spirit Indigenous man who has left his reserve for Winnipeg, works as a camshow performer. Over several days before his stepfather’s funeral, he recalls his childhood and tries to reconcile with his mother.
Won Canada Reads in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award.
Bryan Washington’s 2019 collection of 13 interconnected stories is set in Houston. Several centre on Nicolás, a young man of mixed Black and Latino heritage who works in his family’s restaurant while coming to terms with his sexuality.
Also won the 2020 Dylan Thomas Prize.
Patsy, a Jamaican woman in search of something more, leaves her five-year-old daughter, Tru, in Jamaica and emigrates to New York, where she hopes to reunite with her friend and secret lover, Cicely. Tru grows up with her father.
Dennis-Benn’s second Lesbian Fiction win, after Here Comes the Sun (2017).
Set in the Bay Area in the early 2000s, this short novel in vignettes follows Young Ae, a Korean-born former ballet dancer turned PhD student, and her Korean American husband, a man with a strong inner femininity.
Published by Nightboat Books; the novel runs to about 112 pages.
Francisca, a fifteen-year-old who has moved with her family from Bogotá to Miami, struggles with the heat and her grandmother’s cramped townhouse. Her mother joins an evangelical church, and Francisca falls for the pastor’s daughter, Carmen.
Delgado Lopera’s first novel, developed from a story written for an MFA at San Francisco State.
Brontez Purnell’s collection of short fiction is a first-person look at gay dysfunction, desire and casual encounters. It opens with the narrator waking up in an unfamiliar place beside an attractive stranger.
Purnell won a Whiting Award in fiction in 2018.
Skye, a nomadic woman nearing forty, sold her eggs for cash at twenty-six. On a visit home to West Philadelphia, a twelve-year-old girl tells Skye that she was born from one of them.
McKenzie earlier won the Lammy for LGBT Debut Fiction with The Summer We Got Free (2013).
In Syria in 2003, the romance between two young friends, Hussam and Wassim, is discovered by Hussam’s father. Ten years later Hussam lives as a refugee in Vancouver, while Wassim, having left his wife and child, is homeless in Damascus.
Shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
K-Ming Chang’s collection of six stories centres on Asian American women and blends myth, migration, the body, the ghostly and queerness. Its characters include immigrant aunts, a storm chaser’s wife and a woman from a cigarette advertisement who comes to life.
Named one of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2022.
After his boyfriend, Kai, dies, Cam returns to Houston and is drawn back into the life of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ’s family bakery. Cam works as a bartender while grief and addiction threaten to overwhelm him.
Washington’s second Gay Fiction win, after Lot in 2020.
The novel takes the form of a 2005 biography of X, an artist and musician, written by her widow, C. M. Lucca. It is set in an alternate history in which the Southern states seceded in 1945 and walled themselves off.
Won the 2023 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize for fiction; Lacey won a Whiting Award in 2016.
Allen Bratton’s debut novel recasts Shakespeare’s Henriad in London in 2014. Over a year of parties and drinking, Hal Lancaster, heir to the Duke of Lancaster, deals with his mother’s death, his father’s decline and his feuding siblings.
Bratton’s first novel, published by Unnamed Press in 2024.
In the Dutch province of Overijssel in 1961, Isabel lives alone in her family’s house and reluctantly takes in Eva, the girlfriend of her brother Louis. An unexpected relationship develops between the two women.
Won the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize.
Johnny Grant still lives in the flat at 1 Nova Scotia House that he shared with Jerry Field, whom he met at nineteen. Facing difficult decisions, he looks back on Jerry and on queer life before the AIDS crisis.
Charlie Porter’s debut novel; named a Foyles and Guardian Book of the Year.
Lenore Crowther, married to a steel magnate, lives in a draughty Victorian mansion. When the couple rescue Carmilla Kernstein from a carriage accident, Lenore finds that she resembles a girl who haunts her dreams.
A reworking of Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 vampire novella Carmilla.
The Lambda Literary Awards grew out of the Lambda Book Report, a publication started in 1987 by L. Page “Deacon” Maccubbin. The first ceremony, in 1989, honoured books published in 1988, which is why some sources call it the 1988 awards. It presented 14 awards and prizes, including twelve categories.
The awards are now run by the Lambda Literary Foundation. The 38th ceremony was held on 12 June 2026 at Sony Hall. Books must be published in English and be available in the United States, and eligibility rests on a book’s LGBTQ content rather than on the author’s identity.
Gay Fiction and Lesbian Fiction sit alongside many other categories, which have been merged or split over the years depending on the number of submissions. A trans literature award was added in 1997, a separate bisexual category returned in 2006 and the Humor category has been discontinued. By 2026 there were 26 categories.
Category winners receive trophies, while the Special Prizes carry cash. These include the Karla Jay Prize, the Denneny Award, the Pat Holt Prize, the Jeanne Córdova Prize, the Jim Duggins Prize and the J. Michael Samuel Prize, as well as the Visionary Award, which went to Chuck Forester in 2026.
Annual awards for books with LGBTQ themes, known as the Lammys and presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation since 1989. There were 26 categories in 2026.
Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter, published in the US by Nightboat Books.
Hungerstone by Kat Dunn, published in the US by Zando.
The 38th Lambda Literary Awards took place on 12 June 2026 at Sony Hall in New York City.
Henry Henry by Allen Bratton won Gay Fiction and The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden won Lesbian Fiction.
No. Eligibility depends on a book’s LGBTQ content rather than the author’s identity, although rules between 2009 and 2012 temporarily allowed author-based eligibility.
Yes. Since 2006, Chinelo Okparanta and Nicole Dennis-Benn have each won Lesbian Fiction twice, and Bryan Washington has won Gay Fiction twice.
Category winners receive trophies; only the Special Prizes, such as the Karla Jay Prize and the Denneny Award, carry cash.
Winner list last verified 28 October 2026.
The notes on this page are all mine,
and the books are all theirs.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
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