Larry Benjamin's Blog: Larry Benjamin's blog - This Writer's Life - Posts Tagged "lammys"

I talk a lot about always feeling other, always feeling alien. For the most part this feeling of otherness is something that envelopes me like my skin. I tend not to think about it unless something irritates me, sort of how we tend not to think too much about the skin we’re in until a blemish erupts, or a mosquito makes a meal of us.

Tuesday night I had the great honor of participating in the Lammy Finalist Reading at the Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York (Yes, Virginia there is such a thing, and if you haven’t been there I urge you to go check it out.) It would be the first time I ever read in public and I admit I was a tad nervous—okay more than a tad. Also New York itself unnerves me: all those people, all that crackling energy, all that movement. My brother met me at Penn Station and we went to a diner for lunch. And then it was 5:15 and we were walking into the museum. I was the first reader to arrive. They were setting up a display of finalists’ books for sale and there it was—on the left at the front—Unbroken. My Unbroken. I stepped back. Was this really happening? I pulled out my phone and took a picture in case it all suddenly disappeared like a dream.
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On Thursday, May 15, I had the distinct honor of reading with five other Lambda Literary finalists at Giovanni’s Room in Philadelphia. Among the finalists reading were fellow Philadelphian and Philadelphia University professor, Phil Tiemeyer, filmmaker and author, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, and poets Michael Klein and Brian Teare.

Two weeks before, I’d done the finalist reading in New York. But this felt different. It was on my home turf. Stanley would be there. I had more time to read from my book.

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The 26th Annual Lambda Literary awards were held Monday, June 2 at Cooper Union in NYC. Because my third novel, Unbroken, was a finalist, we hopped the Acela and went. My brother was waiting at Penn Station by the flower stand at the 8th Ave exit when we arrived. We hugged and began our wait.

SusieQ, his fiancée, if not early, or on time, but at last not as late as usual, stormed the station, a warrior princess in red, a blast of windblown hair and towering heels. Together we took the subway downtown. We arrived early and, led by my brother, Michael, tall, unshakeable as a redwood, surged through the doors at Cooper Union, boisterous, bulletproof, Stanley, my partner, trailing us looking bewildered but proud. We signed in at the reception desk and were directed downstairs.

Downstairs: a crush of bodies and rising heat. An army of waiters, ramrod straight and beautiful, jet hair, silver white skin, red-red lips parted in welcome, seemed to beckon, come closer. Closer. Okay, not that close. They coolly offered platters of hors d’ouevres, and poured oceans of Ketel 1 Vodka.

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Today marks one year since my Beaten Track Publishing released of my third book, the gay coming-of-age/romance novel, Unbroken. And what a year it has been. Unbroken was both a 2014 IPPY (Independent Publishers) Gold medalist and a Lambda Literary Award finalist in the Gay Romance category. That lead to the opportunity to join other finalists at readings in New York and Philadelphia.

But perhaps most significantly, the publication of Unbroken allowed me to reconnect me with my childhood crush, Jose, who is the real life basis for the character of Jose, Lincoln de Chabert’s lifelong love in Unbroken. Getting to know him as an adult, confessing that long ago first crush has been both cathartic and illuminating.

Now seems like a good time to thank reviewers who read the book and wrote reviews, as well as the readers who not only spent their hard earned cash to buy the book but who also took the time to read the book and post a review here on Goodreads, or Amazon, or drop me an email sharing their thoughts on the story. One 75 year old woman said that she’d always loved her gay son but until she read Unbroken she had never truly understood. Another woman was reading the book because her 12 year old son had confessed to her that everyone at school kept asking him if he was gay. He, himself, was unsure, but she wanted to prepare herself to support him if he was.

My goal in writing Unbroken was to take the reader by the hand and carry him or her on my journey, down a road that was often unpaved, unlit, and which passed through enemy territory and unexplored lands but which was the only road open to me. I thank everyone who travelled that road with me by reading the book.

“…These empty white pages before me, which I feel compelled to fill with the black indelible ink of memory…I must write it all down—quickly, before it leaves me…"

Thomas-Edward Lawrence
What Binds Us

As 2014 draws to a close, I thought I’d look back over a year that was—for lack of a better work—brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. But before I go on, don’t take that to mean that it was a perfect year—it wasn’t; it brought with it, fears and disappointments and challenges. In retrospect, I like to think I met each of them with grace and a determination to overcome. But I like to learn from the bad stuff, not dwell on it so this post is about the good stuff, the stuff of which I’m most proud and for which I’m most grateful.

In March, the Lambda Literary Foundation announced its 2014 Lambda Literary Awards (“Lammys”) finalists. My semi-autobiographical third book, the gay coming of age romance, Unbroken made the cut: I was a finalist. I couldn’t believe it. I reread the press release and cross checked their website. I went to sleep. I woke up, checked again. They hadn’t recanted. I was a finalist!

As a Lammy finalist, I had the opportunity to do two readings from Unbroken in May. One at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art in New York and the second at the legendary Giovanni’s Room in Philadelphia, the week before it closed its doors. At both those readings, surrounded by people I mostly didn’t know, I’d felt, for the first time, like I belonged. I felt like a real writer. Wrapped in voices, in words, I stopped feeling different, other, fake. For we’d all attempted to create beauty out of words—and been recognized for it. The written word was our common language, and our words didn’t have color or economic status tied to them; our words weren’t “A-list;” they were just words, beautiful words. The creation of art was the great equalizer it seemed. Perhaps that’s why I write; art unites, it does not divide.

In May, Unbroken won an Independent Book Publisher’s (“IPPY”) Gold medal for gay fiction. I'd never won anything that mattered before.

I was having a good year but June was a banner month. On June 2nd, along with Stanley and my brother and his fiancée, and a record-breaking crowd, I attended the Lammy Awards ceremony in New York.

I met Charles Rice-Gonzalez, author of Chulito, a book I loved. I met the very handsome S. Chris Shirley, President of the Lambda Literary Foundation’s Board of Trustees. And I met Kyle sawyer, who’d been the liaison between LLF and the finalists. I’d been a nervous wreck, emailing him often. His emails back were always crisp and to the point but somehow calming, reassuring: everything would be fine. Reading his emails, I pictured a tall, cool blonde. Instead Kyle turned out to be short, dark and...well, hot. I hugged him twice.

Unbroken didn’t win and that was disappointing but in a way just making finalist, felt like winning. And I'd hugged a hot guy. Twice.

Then on June 28th, the scrawny, bullied, sissy kid, who’d always known he’d marry a man, did. On that day, the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which was also our 17th anniversary, I married the man I’d spent nearly two decades with.

In August, eleven months and 6 days after we lost our beloved Lhasa Apso, Coco, we found a dirty white dog running in the street in our neighborhood. We captured him, brought him home, fed him and cleaned him up expecting an owner to claim him. No one did, so we named him and I was surprised to find he has filled a hole in my heart I hadn’t realized was there until he filled it.

In September, my older brother got married. 2014 was the year he found love; it was also the year he and I found our way back to each other after many years apart. He’d always been my brother but in 2014 he became a friend. At his wedding, I was his best man. I’d never been a best man before.

2014 was also the year Marriage Equality became the law in thirty-five U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

So all in all it was a remarkable year, a brilliant year, a year of firsts.

I look forward to 2015 and I wish you and those you love a year of dreams that come true, a year filled with “firsts.”

What was 2014 like for you? What do you wish for in 2015? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Read about my first reading here.

Read about my Giovanni’s Room reading here.

Read my musings about finally being able to get married here.