She seems to have acknowledged that she was a finalist, and that the main thing about the prize is the publicity.
https://laurenhough.substack.com/p/a...a-literary?s=r
There is a small check involved.The Lambda Prize exists because when someone like me, which is to say, a queer person, manages to publish a book with queer themes, those books are often ignored by mainstream prize committees. Prizes get media attention. Prizes create name recognition and bring in new readers. Prizes sell books. Prizes like the Lambda also come with a check. It would’ve nice if my book had won a prize, but it won’t.
https://lambdaliterary.org/2021/01/c...Lamar%20Wilson.
What's the lie?
It would be a major error for the Times to just say she only submitted herself for nomination, and not correct it.
She posted the email saying she was a finalist for an award, which asked her to not leak the news until the nominations were made.
She later got an email saying that her online comments were why she was no longer nominated.
The co-producers of the Lambda prize were also explicit about this, making a joint statement and telling the Times why she was no longer .
Lambda Literary, which for more than 30 years has administered the Lammys, confirmed that Hough had been removed from contention for the award.
“In a series of now-deleted tweets, Lauren Hough exhibited what we believed to be a troubling hostility toward transgender critics and trans-allies and used her substantial platform — due in part to her excellent book — to harmfully engage with readers and critics,” Cleopatra Acquaye and Maxwell Scales, Lambda Literary’s interim co-executive directors, said in a joint statement Monday. “As an L.G.B.T.Q. organization, we cannot knowingly reward individuals who exhibit disdain and disrespect for the autonomy of an entire segment of the community we have committed ourselves to supporting.”The Twitter narrative is contradicted by the emails and the official statements of the interim directors of the literary organization.Acquaye and Scales said in a joint interview that an independent judging panel and Lambda Literary had both contributed to the decision to withdraw the book from contention, and said that the organization had not taken a position on “The Men.”
As a result of Hough’s posts, Scales said in the interview, “many trans folks felt like they couldn’t, they were not allowed to be in these conversations.” Acquaye said that the posts “did not uplift other queer people and these voices.”
The people behind the Lambda prize made a statement that her tweets represented disrespect and disdain for trans people. They could could provide examples of what those tweets are, but chose not to.