The Alice B Readers Award - Significance of The Award

Significance of The Award

Historically, lesbians have rarely had their voices heard in the fiction or nonfiction of modern society, (except perhaps as footnotes in medical journals regarding pathology). As Bertha Harris, author of many novels including Lover, once wrote: "Between the time of Sappho and the birth of Natalie Clifford Barney lies a 'lesbian silence' of twenty-four centuries." It wasn't until the 1970s and the establishment of Naiad Books (after the Stonewall-riots in 1969), that books by, for, and about lesbians began to be regularly published. Still, it was a long hard road with little recognition and to this day, considerable difficulties and discrimination face authors of lesbian works.

The Alice B Award is one small contribution toward overcoming discrimination. As Martha Nell Smith so cogently wrote:

"The trajectory of lesbian literature for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century can be described as a movement from encrypted strategies for expressions of the love that dare not speak its name to overtly political celebrations of woman-for-woman passion that, by the late 1960s, refused to be denied, denigrated, or expunged."

The Alice B Award exists to honor and recognize forerunners of modern lesbian fiction including such luminaries as Ann Bannon, Jane Rule, Marijane Meaker, Katherine V. Forrest, and Lee Lynch as well as to the new voices who are providing information, entertainment, and enlightenment to lesbians around the world.