The USA’s Lambda Literary Awards for LGBTQ+ storytelling have announced their 2026 nominees, highlighting many notable new books.
Established in 1985, Lambda Literary has championed LGBTQ themed books and authors and their awards now has a massive 26 categories. If you’re looking for a great new book to read – here’s a great list to get you started.
Across 26 different categories the awards cover everything from fiction, non-fiction, poetry, romance, speculative fiction and biography and memoir. They’re also broken into gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender categories too.
The winners will be announced of Friday 12 June at a ceremony at Sony Hall in New York City.
From Robert Holtom’s A Queer Case, nominated in the LGBTQ+ Mystery category, to the controversial British play Prince Faggot, and Iain Morland academic work Lessons in Drag, there’s a huge variety of titles featured.
You’ll also find a new book focussing on queer photography, works on authors James Baldwin and Gertrude Stein, and another on transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson. In the fiction section books by Dylan Hardcastle, Marisa Crane, Tash Aw, Sam Wachman, Demee McGhee, and Milo Todd made the cut.
