On Thursday, May 7, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., the 21st Annual Publishing Triangle Awards, honoring the best lesbian and gay fiction, debut fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published in 2008 will be presented.

Martin Duberman is the recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whiteread Award for Lifetime Achievement, named in honor of a legendary editor of the 1970s and 1980s. Carole DeSanti is the recipient of the Publishing Triangle's Leadership Award, which was created in 2002 and recognizes contributions to lesbian and gay literature by those who are not primarily writers—editors, agents, librarians, and others.

Duberman is the author of over 20 books, including Stonewall; James Russell Lowell (a National Book Award finalist); and the memoir Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey. His play In White America won the Vernon Rice / Drama Desk Award for Best Off-Broadway Production in 1963. In 2007, he published The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, a biography of the man who was the force behind George Balanchine's New York City Ballet. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the City University of New York, and the founder and first director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the CUNY Graduate School.

DeSanti has been an advocate for LGBT books since the 1980s, when she became the first openly lesbian editor at a major American trade publisher. Back then, at E.P. Dutton, she acquired Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina. DeSanti is currently vice president, editor at large at the Penguin Group.

The other awards that will be presented are the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry, the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction in this annual ceremony. The Publishing Triangle also partners with the Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards to present awards in gay and lesbian fiction and with the Robert Chelsey Foundation to present awards for playwriting. For the complete list of nominees, please visit Publishing Triangle website .

This free event hosted by The New School Writing Program will take place in Tishman Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street. A public reception follows the ceremony.