Comments on: Gay book prize accused of discrimination http://equalwrites.org/2009/10/08/gay-book-prize-accused-of-discrimination/ Feminism and Gender Issues at Princeton University Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:33:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Courtny http://equalwrites.org/2009/10/08/gay-book-prize-accused-of-discrimination/#comment-1015 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:36:38 +0000 http://equalwrites.org/2009/10/08/gay-book-prize-accused-of-discrimination#comment-1015 I like that quote, Emily. I think that's the best way to go about it – give the award to an author who themselves identifies as LGBTQ.

Yes, it does reward being out…but people who are out have taken a big risk and may not be able to get other awards because they're out – so it makes sense to me to have this prize for them.

On more random note, I participated in a Catherynne Valente reading in New Orleans and she was totally awesome.

]]> By: Emily Rutherford http://equalwrites.org/2009/10/08/gay-book-prize-accused-of-discrimination/#comment-1014 Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:35:34 +0000 http://equalwrites.org/2009/10/08/gay-book-prize-accused-of-discrimination#comment-1014 I remember that some member of the awards committee was quoted as saying something like (I'm paraphrasing) "This prize is designated for LGBT writers, but we're not going to decide who/what 'counts' as LGBT." That seems to me to be a reasonably fair way of going about this; you don't have to sleep with a certain set of people to fit under the queer umbrella, and I get the sense that the awards committee is aware of this.

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