Lambda Lit Awards

The 2008 Lammy finalists have been announced!

Lesbian Fiction

• The Slow Fix, Ivan E. Coyote, Arsenal Pulp Press
• The Sealed Letter, Emma Donoghue, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Map of Ireland, Stephanie Grant, Scribner
• All the Pretty Girls, Chandra Mayor, Conundrum Press
• Breaking Spirit Bridge, Ruth Perkinson, Spinsters Ink

Lesbian Debut Fiction

• Red Audrey & the Roping, Jill Malone, Bywater Books
• Passing for Black, Linda Villarosa, Kensington
• Closer to Fine, Meri Weiss, Kensington
• Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind, Chavisa Woods, Fly by Night Press
• The Bruise, Magdalena Zurawski, Fiction Collective Two/University of Alabama Press

Lesbian Memoir/Biography

• Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy, Susan Griffin, Shambhala Publications
• Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word), Thea Hillman, Manic D Press
• Sex Variant Woman, Joanne Passet, Da Capo
• Sex Talks to Girls: A Memoir, Maureen Seaton, University of Arkansas Press
• Case of a Lifetime, Abbe Smith, Palgrave Macmillan

It's great to see two Canadian writers in the finalists for lesbian fiction - Ivan Coyote and Chandra Mayor. Congrats to them! [Update! Emma Donoghue has lived in Canada for over 10 years - that makes 3 Canadian authors on the shortlist for Lesbian Fiction.] We often select a couple of Lambda winners/finalists/nominees for our reading list. Anyone know of any other awards we might follow?

adopted: veprecose

adopted: veprecose
Originally uploaded by kim.mama

meaning: full of prickly shrubs or bushes

heh. savethewords.org is a fun site with some words that have fallen into disuse and are being dropped from dictionaries.

two memoirs i'm really wanting to read

So. Apparently, *someone* in our book club knows *someone* featured in this book - Secret Service: Untold Stories of Lesbians in the Military by Zsa Zsa Gershick. That alone qualifies it for our reading list. Hee. Seriously, it sounds really interesting, don't you think?

Another memoir just caught my eye too: My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy by Andrea Askowitz. It sounds very funny and a little bitter. Anybody in?

International House of Pancakes.

In case you didn't know what IHOP stood for. April's selection is The IHOP Papers by Ali Leibegott.

We met last night to chat about Dionne Brand's novel What We All Long For. There was a lot to say. For one thing, we tried to answer the question - what did the main characters long for? Did they long for love? For release from the ties to their families' troubles? I myself loved the depiction of Toronto - having lived there myself for a couple of years. It felt really honest. Not everyone loved it, but all of us found it fascinating to read and discuss. The book made us examine the immigrant experience, race, familial relationships, art, music, and on and on and on!