Two or Three Gay Authors Among Five PEN/Faulkner Finalists

Congratulations to Benjamin Alire Sáenz, who came out at 54 in 2009 and is having a spectacular year now, honored with three awards at ALA for his gay novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and yesterday earned double Lammy nominations and became a PEN/Faulkner finalist. 

Thomas Mallon, 61, told an interviewer after the publication of his first mainly gay novel Fellow Travelers in 2007, "I have always been openly gay, but to put homosexuality front and center in the book was different..." 

The five PEN/Faulkner finalists are:

• Amelia Gray, Threats (FSG)
• Laird Hunt, Kind One (Coffee House Press)
• T. Geronimo Johnson, Hold It 'Til It Hurts [Kindle] (Coffee House Press)
• Thomas Mallon, Watergate [Kindle] (Pantheon)
• Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club (Cinco Puntos Press)

The winner will be announced March 19.