Country United States | First awarded 1971 | |
Awarded for "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" Presented by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) Official website ala.org/glbtrt/awardand two "homepages" | ||
The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" in English-language books published in the U.S. They are sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) and have been part of the American Library Association awards program, now termed ALA Book, Print & Media Awards, since 1986 as the single Gay Book Award.
The three award categories are fiction and nonfiction in books for adults, distinguished in 1990, and books for children or young adults, from 2010. The awards are named for Barbara Gittings, Israel Fishman, and (jointly) Mike Morgan and Larry Romans. In full they are the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award, the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award, and the Stonewall Book Awards – Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award.
Finalists have been designated from 1990, and termed "Honor Books" from 2001. Currently a panel of librarians selects five finalists in each award category and subsequently selects one winner. The winners are announced in January and each receives a plaque and $1000 cash prize during the ALA Annual Conference in June or July. Winners are expected to attend and to give acceptance speeches.
The ALA solicits book suggestions each to be accompanied by a brief statement in favor of the book. Those are recommendations or "applications" to the Awards Committee from the public by email, which are not accepted from publishers, agents, authors, and others with vested interests.
Eligible books should be original works published in the U.S. during the preceding year, including "substantially changed new editions" and "English-language translations of foreign-language books".
History
The Gay Book Award was inaugurated in 1971, recognizing Patience and Sarah, a historical novel by Alma Routsong as Isabel Miller, which had been self-published by Routsong in 1969. Originally it was a "grassroots acknowledgment" of GLBT publishing and there was "only a handful" of books to consider annually. By 1995 there were more than 800.
In 2002 the awards, then two, were jointly named after the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots.
From 1986 the Gay Book Award and its descendants have been part of the American Library Association awards program, now termed ALA Book, Print & Media Awards.