Living Canon

Lambda Literary Awards 2013: Complete list of winners

The Lambda Literary Awards have long served as the publishing industry’s most prominent honor for LGBTQ+ literature, and the 2013 Lambda Literary Awards ceremony proved no exception in recognizing the year’s most compelling voices across the community’s diverse literary landscape. This year’s winners span memoir, fiction, and essay collections, showcasing the breadth of queer storytelling—from Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s intimate Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club in the Gay Fiction category to Jeanette Winterson’s provocative Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? in Lesbian Memoir/Biography. What strikes many observers about this year’s selections is how they reflect a literary community increasingly centered on nuanced narratives of identity, history, and personal truth-telling, whether through autobiography, intimate fiction, or critical scholarship.

The 2013 awards also highlight the growing recognition of transgender voices in mainstream literary discourse—a meaningful shift reflected in dedicated categories honoring both fiction and critical works in the field. Cynthia Carr’s meticulously researched biography Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz brought fresh scholarly attention to the legendary activist and artist, while Thrity Umrigar’s The World We Found claimed the Lesbian Fiction prize with its multigenerational exploration of female friendship and desire. Together, these Lambda Literary Award winners represent not just individual achievements, but a collective statement about which queer stories the literary community considers essential reading.

Here are the complete 2013 Lambda Literary Awards winners:

Bisexual Literature

Gay Fiction

Gay Memoir/Biography

Lesbian Fiction

Lesbian Memoir/Biography

Transgender Fiction