Award overlap

Books That Won Both the Lambda Literary Awards and the PEN America Literary Awards

2 books won both the Lambda Literary Awards and the PEN America Literary Awards between 2019 and 2023, most recently The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin (2023/2023). 32 more were recognized by both without winning both.

Years are award years. Lambda Literary Awards · PEN America Literary Awards

Won both

Books that won both the Lambda Literary Awards and the PEN America Literary Awards, most recent first.
Book	Author	Lambda Literary Awards	PEN America Literary Awards
The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin	Hafizah Augustus Geter	2023 Winner (LGBTQ+ Nonfiction)	2023 Winner (PEN Open Book Award)
Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry	Imani Perry	2019 Winner (Nonfiction)	2019 Winner (PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography)

Recognized by both

Books recognized by both the Lambda Literary Awards and the PEN America Literary Awards without winning both, most recent first.
Book	Author	Lambda Literary Awards	PEN America Literary Awards
Dead in Long Beach, California	Venita Blackburn	2025 Finalist (Lesbian Fiction)	2025 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel) 2025 Finalist (PEN/Jean Stein Book Award)
A Film in Which I Play Everyone	Mary Jo Bang	2024 Finalist (Bisexual Poetry)	2024 Finalist (PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection)
All the Flowers Kneeling	Paul Tran	2023 Finalist (Transgender Poetry)	2023 Finalist (PEN Open Book Award)
Call Me Cassandra	Marcial Gala	2023 Finalist (Gay Fiction)	2023 Finalist (PEN Translation Prize)
Manywhere	Morgan Thomas	2023 Finalist (Transgender Fiction)	2023 Finalist (PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection)
Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir	Rajiv Mohabir	2022 Finalist (Gay Memoir/Biography)	2022 Finalist (PEN Open Book Award)
Detransition, Baby: A Novel	Torrey Peters	2022 Finalist (Transgender Fiction)	2022 Winner (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
Let the Record Show	Sarah Schulman	2022 Winner (LGBTQ Nonfiction)	2022 Finalist (PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction)
The Five Wounds	Kirstin Valdez Quade	2022 Finalist (Lesbian Fiction)	2022 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease	Daisy Hernández	2022 Finalist (Bisexual Nonfiction)	2022 Winner (PEN/Jean Stein Book Award)
How Much of These Hills is Gold	C Pam Zhang	2021 Finalist (Bisexual Fiction)	2021 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
Shuggie Bain	Douglas Stuart	2021 Finalist (Gay Fiction)	2021 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
Terroir: Love, Out of Place	Natasha Sajé	2021 Finalist (Bisexual Nonfiction)	2021 Finalist (PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay)
The Freezer Door	Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore	2021 Finalist (Transgender Nonfiction)	2021 Finalist (PEN/Jean Stein Book Award)
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals	Saidiya Hartman	2020 Finalist (Lesbian Memoir/Biography)	2021 Winner (PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction)
Wild Peach	S*an D. Henry-Smith	2021 Finalist (Bisexual Poetry)	2021 Finalist (PEN Open Book Award)
Big Familia	Tomas Moniz	2020 Finalist (Bisexual Fiction)	2020 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
Build Yourself a Boat	Camonghne Felix	2020 Finalist (Bisexual Poetry)	2020 Finalist (PEN Open Book Award)
Lot	Bryan Washington	2020 Winner (Gay Fiction)	2020 Finalist (PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection)
Sontag: Her Life and Work	Benjamin Moser	2020 Finalist (Lesbian Memoir/Biography)	2020 Finalist (PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography)
Stay and Fight	Madeline ffitch	2020 Finalist (Lesbian Fiction)	2020 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
Disoriental	Négar Djavadi	2019 Winner (Bisexual Fiction)	2019 Finalist (PEN Translation Prize)
Freshwater	Akwaeke Emezi	2019 Finalist (Transgender Fiction)	2019 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel	Alexander Chee	2019 Finalist (Gay Memoir/Biography)	2019 Finalist (PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay)
Her Body and Other Parties	Carmen Maria Machado	2018 Winner (Lesbian Fiction)	2018 Finalist (PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection)
When Watched	Leopoldine Core	2017 Finalist (Bisexual Fiction)	2017 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
For Today I Am a Boy	Kim Fu	2015 Finalist (Transgender Fiction)	2015 Finalist (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
Damn Love	Jasmine Beach-Ferrara	2014 Finalist (Gay Fiction)	2014 Honor (PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel)
All We Know: Three Lives	Lisa Cohen	2013 Finalist (Lesbian Memoir/Biography)	2013 Finalist (PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography)
Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade	Justin Spring	2011 Winner (Gay Memoir/Biography)	2011 Finalist (PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography)
Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice	Janet Malcolm	2008 Finalist (Lesbian Memoir/Biography)	2008 Winner (PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography)
Mother of Sorrows	Richard McCann	2006 Finalist (Gay Debut Fiction)	2006 Finalist (PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection)