The Last Bi Writers

SHELFIES: Sheela Lambert, Director of the Bi Writers Association

Within a few months of finding the bi community, I started looking up when I came into the building and seeing this sign that said “Lesbian and Gay” but not Bisexual or Transgender. That started to bother me. I brought the issue up to the other women in my women’s group and we started talking about it. A whole bunch of us formed a working group. We wrote a letter. We got some other people from outside our group involved: men, a bi woman black poet that I hadn’t known before – other people connected us up. We had three or four representatives go into a meeting with The Center. That was the beginning of that. It took them about ten years to actually change the name and become fully inclusive. The purpose of these awards is to acknowledge and reward the authors, the publishers who publish bi-themed books, and to encourage them to continue to do it. From the time we started that one little category in the Lammies, where we identified maybe 18 books, ultimately winnowed down to 10 that fit our guidelines. Now, this year, for the Bisexual Book Awards, with 13 categories, I started with 200-something books and wound up with 106 submitted. That’s a lot of progress.