The Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography is an annual literary award established in 1994, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, to a memoir, biography, autobiography, or works of creative nonfiction by or about lesbians. Works published posthumously and/or written with co-authors are eligible, but anthologies are not.
Recipients +List of Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography Recipients Year Author Work Result 1994Marguerite YourcenarWinnerFamily ValuesFinalistForty-Three Septembers (editor) How Am I To Be Heard: Letters of Lillian SmithMary Renault1995 (editor)Gertrude Stein: In Words and PicturesWinnerMemoir of a Race TraitorFinalistOne Art: LettersColonel and Chris FisherServing in Silence1996Aimee & JaguarWinner and Joyce MurdochAnd Say Hi to JoyceFinalistBabe with Hannah AshleyEight BulletsTwo or Three Things I Know for Sure1997Life in a DayWinnerAccidental ActivistFinalistComing Home to AmericaEva Le Gallienne1998Blue Windows: a Christian Science ChildhoodWinnerMay Sarton: a BiographyFinalistMy Life as a Boy and Jane Meredith AdamsVirginia Woolf1999WinnerFinalistEmpty Without YouRadclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John2000WinnerBaby Precious Always ShinesFinalistEleanor Roosevelt: Volume 2: 1933–1938My Lesbian HusbandTales of the Lavender Menace2001LifesavingWinnerMy Dangerous DesiresFinalistSoldier: A Poet's ChildhoodTruly Wilde2007Fun HomeWinnerIncognito StreetFinalistIntimate PoliticsQueen of the OddballsHit by a Farm2008And Now We Are Going to Have a PartyWinnerComfort Food for BreakupsFinalistTwo Lives: Gertrude & AliceWaiting for the Call2009Sex Talks to Girls: A MemoirWinnerWrestling with the Angel of DemocracyFinalistIntersex (For Lack of a Better Word)Sex Variant WomanCase of a Lifetime2010WinnerMy Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing Up Communist, Coming Onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming Out in the Feminist MovementFinalistLikewise: The High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel SchragCalled Back: My Reply to Cancer, My Return to LifeMean Little deaf Queer2011Hammer!: Making Movies Out of Sex and LifeWinner (tie)Wishbone: A Memoir in FracturesBlood Strangers: A MemoirFinalistLike Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country SingerShe Looks Just Like You: A Memoir of (Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood2012When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love & RevolutionWinnerHow to Get a Girl PregnantFinalistSheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the PlanetSmall Fires: EssaysTaking My Life2013Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?WinnerFinalistAll We Know: Three LivesAre You My Mother?: A Comic DramaBefore the RainThe Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination2014Body GeographicWinnerGrowing up GolemFinalistL Is for Lion: An Italian Bronx Butch Freedom Memoir and Wendy MacNaughtonLost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology2015 and Virginia Eubanks, with Barbara SmithAin't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara SmithWinnerCease – a memoir of love, loss and desireFinalistEating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian AvengerUnder This Beautiful Dome: A Senator, A Journalist, and the Politics of Gay Love in America2016Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They AppearWinnerCooking as Fast as I Can: A Chef's Story of Family, Food, and ForgivenessFinalistDirty RiverHunger Makes Me a Modern GirlYou're Not Edith2017ody, Undone: Living On After Great PainWinnerFinalistI'm Just a PersonIndomitable: The Life of Barbara Grier2018The Fact of a BodyWinnerAbandon Me: MemoirsFinalistAfterglowKiss Me Again, Paris: A MemoirThe Pox Lover: An Activist's Decade in New York and Paris2019ChronologyWinnerApocalypse, DarlingFinalistBerenice Abbott: A Life in PhotographyFood Was Her Country: The Memoir of a Queer DaughterMINE: EssaysMy Butch Career: A Memoirnîtisânak2020We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim MemoirWinnerSontag: Her Life and WorkFinalistWayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval with Joshua LyonOrdinary GirlsLong Live the Tribe of Fatherless GirlsMotherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing2021My Autobiography of Carson McCullersWinnerAnd The Walls Come Crumbling DownFinalistLady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America's First CelebrityPracticing for Love: A Memoir2022WinnerFinalistWhy Labelle Matters2023Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and HappinessWinnerBrown Neon FinalistMa and Me Pretty Baby: A Memoir Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place2024 Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in ArchivesWinner Lamya H Hijab Butch BluesFinalist Vi Khi Nao Suicide: The Autoimmune Disorder of the Psyche To Name the Bigger Lie Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters2025My Withered Legs and Other EssaysWinnerMama: A Queer Black Woman's Story of a Family Lost and FoundFinalistPortrait of a BodyWrong is Not My Name2026Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka HugginsWinnerGertrude SteinFinalist
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