We are proud to announce that Derrick Austin’s Trouble the Water (BOA Editions, 2016) has been selected as a finalist for two prestigious LGBT literary awards: The Publishing Triangle's Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.
"Never in my lifetime have LGBTQ stories felt so important as a means of being recognized and counted, as a form of resistance to this dangerous political climate we find ourselves in,” said Lambda Literary Executive Director Tony Valenzuela. “The Lammys are a celebration of great queer literature, and this year they’re also a reminder that our community of writers, publishers, and readers is not only strong, but part of a vital pathway to asserting our humanity."
Derrick Austin's Trouble the Water was chosen by National Book Award-winning author Mary Szybist for BOA Editions's A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize. Having earned his MFA in Poetry at the University of Michigan, Austin is a Cave Canem fellow, a Pushcart Prize-nominee, and a four-time Best New Poets nominee. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry 2015, Image: A Journal of Arts and Religion, New England Review, Callaloo, Nimrod, Puerto Del Sol, and elsewhere. He is the current Ron Wallace Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.
The Thom Gunn Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle to honor work of gay male poetry. First presented in 2001 as the Triangle Award for Gay Poetry, the award was renamed in memory of American poet Thom Gunn, the award's first winner, following his death in 2004. A full list of finalists can be found at www.publishingtriangle.org.
The Publishing Triangle will announce the winners of the Thom Gunn Award, along with six additional Publishing Triangle Literary Awards, at a ceremony honoring the best LGBTQ fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and trans/gender-variant literature published in 2016. The 29th annual Triangle Awards ceremony will be presented on April 27, 2017, at the Auditorium of The New School: 66 West 12th Street in New York City, at 7PM The ceremony is free and open to the public, with a reception to follow.
Now in their 29th year, the Lambda Literary Awards celebrate achievement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer writing for books published in 2016. Finalists were selected from nearly 900 submissions and over 300 publishers. Seventy-five literary professionals, including booksellers, book reviewers, librarians, authors, academics and previous Lammy winners and finalists volunteered countless hours of reading, critical thinking, and invigorating discussion to select the Lambda Literary Awards finalists in 23 categories.
Winners of the 29th annual Lambda Literary Awards will be announced The winners will be announced at a gala ceremony on Monday evening, June 12, 2017 in New York City. The awards ceremony will be held at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY 10012). More information and tickets for the gala can be found on Lambda’s website.
Congratulations to Derrick and all other finalists!
For more information on Trouble the Water, visit the BOA Bookstore.
