Lambda Literary Awards 2015: Complete list of winners

The 2015 Lambda Literary Awards celebrated the extraordinary range and depth of LGBTQ+ literature, honoring works that captured everything from intimate personal journeys to bold political activism. Founded in 1989, the Lambda Literary Awards remain one of the most prestigious honors for LGBTQ+ authors, and this year’s winners demonstrated why representation in publishing matters so profoundly. From Ana Castillo’s Give It to Me to the memoirs of Barbara Smith and Thomas Page McBee, these books testified to the lived experiences of queer and trans people navigating identity, desire, and community across generations.

What struck many observers about the 2015 Lambda Literary Awards was the remarkable strength of the memoir and biography categories, where writers like John Lahr’s examination of Tennessee Williams and Charles M. Blow’s Fire Shut Up In My Bones offered searingly honest accounts of resilience and artistic legacy. Meanwhile, the recognition of Casey Plett’s A Safe Girl to Love and Thomas Page McBee’s Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man in the Transgender Fiction category—alongside fiction wins for Tom Spanbauer’s I Loved You More and Alexis De Veaux’s Yabo—reflected a publishing landscape increasingly committed to telling diverse queer stories. The inclusion of Second Avenue Caper in the LGBTQ+ Comics category also signaled the growing importance of graphic narratives in the awards conversation.

Below you’ll find the complete list of 2015 Lambda Literary Awards winners across all major categories.