When the Lambda Literary Awards return June 9 as an in-person event in New York City, the 35th annual celebration will serve as a coming-out party of sorts for the organization after three years of transition.

Sue Landers resigned as executive director in 2021, after four years in the role, to make way for new leadership. A national search and two interim executive directors later, Lambda’s board tapped poet and educator Samiya Bashir to lead the group last year.

The search for Lambda’s executive director centered on “justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion,” said board president Roz Lee. “Samiya stood out as a creative, visionary, and inspirational leader. She’s a proven trailblazer and institution builder who’s collaborative, values-driven, and loves LGBTQ literature, writers, and queer communities.”

For her part, Bashir credited Landers with laying the groundwork for what comes next. “I’m able to do it because Sue Landers set up this organization for success,” she said. “Sue got this organization through the pandemic, and she made a conscious decision to step away in order to make room for a different kind of leadership, which is something people were calling for across all of our communities.”

Amid book bans and increasing anti-LGBTQ legislation, the timing of Lambda’s leadership change isn’t lost on Bashir. She quickly went to work shoring up the organization’s capacity, increasing its staff from three to 10 full-time employees. After a recently announced $250,000 donation from author Chuck Forester, Lambda hired its first director of development and engagement, Harper Zacharias.

Bashir called the gift “transformational.” “What people imagine Lambda is capable of has always been a bit more than what we could actually be capable of,” she said. “These last six months have been a deep transition. There have been growing pains, but we’re getting to a place where we have a grown-up organization that’s grounded and joisted with the infrastructure to support the programmatic work that we need to be doing.”

Getting reconnected

In addition to hosting the upcoming Lammys in person, Lambda has returned to in-person or hybrid formats for its marquee LGBTQ Writers in Schools, Writer’s Retreat, and Learn with Lambda programs.

Monica Carter, national director of LGBTQ Writers in Schools, said the program’s continuation is in response to recent book bans and threats to children’s right to read. “Not being able to bring the authors physically into the classroom was difficult, because we’re talking about engaging students who are already traumatized by the whole pandemic, and it was really difficult to keep that engagement,” she added. “But students love the books that we have, and the fact that authors made the time to connect with them still made a big difference.”

Writers in Schools operates in 29 out of 32 school districts in New York City, serving K–12 students in all five boroughs. Carter, the longest-serving Lambda staff member, built the program from the ground up and attributes its high retention rate to a desire to learn among students. “We get so many positive comments after a visit from students and educators. I would say that success for us is ensuring safety and connecting with LGBTQ+ students,” she said, explaining that about 40% of YA books that are challenged in schools have queer content. “We aim to do it in the largest school district in the United States, but we also want to do it across the United States, including in rural areas that don’t get a lot of attention and don’t have a lot of support in this area.”

In building the organization’s capacity to combat anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, Bashir said, she wants to position Lambda as the go-to organization for support and professional development for LGBTQ writers. “I’m very clear about where I see our organization on our 40th anniversary,” she added. “It’s more than the budget; it’s more than anything bright and shiny. It’s in the kind of life-changing experience that I know people who go through the Writer’s Retreat have, that I know that kids who go through the Writers in School program have, that I know some of our Lammy honorees have. It’s not only that we’ve done this or we do this for folks, but folks know we are here when they need us.”