Huge congratulations to Paul Stephenson who has been named as a finalist in the Gay Poetry category of the 2024 Lambda Literary Awards for his collection Hard Drive!

The Lammys are the most prestigious award in LGBTQ publishing, with are 26 categories for the 36th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. The finalists were selected by more than 70 avid readers, critics, and literary professionals from more than 1,300 submissions. These selections represent outstanding LGBTQ+ literature from 2023.

Winners will be announced at the 2024 Lammy Awards ceremony, which will be held the evening of June 11, 2024 at New York City’s Sony Hall.

Well done to all the writers and publishers on the shortlists! Find more information at the Lammys website here.

When his partner suddenly died, life changed utterly for Paul Stephenson. Hard Drive is the outcome of his revisiting a world he thought he knew, but which had been upended. In poems that are affectionate, self-examining, sometimes funny and often surprised by grief in the oddest corners, the poet takes us through rooms, routines, and rituals of bereavement, the memory of love, a shared life and separation. A noted formalist, with a flair for experiment, pattern and the use of constraints, Stephenson has written a remarkable first book, moving and, despite everything, a hopeful record of a gay relationship. It is also a landmark elegy collection.

Paul Stephenson studied modern languages and linguistics. He has published three pamphlets: Those People (Smith/Doorstop, 2015), which won the Poetry Business pamphlet competition; The Days that Followed Paris (HappenStance, 2016), written after the November 2015 terrorist attacks; and Selfie with Waterlilies (Paper Swans Press, 2017). In 2013/14 he took part in the Jerwood/Arvon mentoring scheme and the Aldeburgh Eight, before completing an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) with the Manchester Writing School. In 2018 he co-edited the ‘Europe’ issue of Magma (70) and currently co-curates Poetry in Aldeburgh. He is a university teacher and researcher, and lives between Cambridge and Brussels. Author photo by Ludovik Saliba.