On Friday, June 1, the Bi Writers Association (BWA) will be celebrating it’s 6th Annual Bisexual Book Awards at Westbeth Community Room in New York City’s West Village neighborhood. The ceremony, which is drawing a crowd from around the globe, will honor bisexual artists and writers and celebrate bi-themed culture and literature that promote community visibility and dismantle harmful stereotypes surrounding bisexuality. BWA Founder and Director Sheela Lambert hopes the awards will “help bi-themed books find an audience.”

Sheela told GLAAD in a statement:

We want authors and publishers to know that their books with bisexual or pansexual characters or content have somewhere to go to find an audience and won’t just slip through the cracks. We believe our efforts are working because every year more bi+ books are published. Because of the Bisexual Book Awards, authors and publishers have so many more bisexual categories to enter and can actually be rewarded for their efforts, if their books are good.” 

The event kicks off with a book signing at 7:30PM and is followed by readings from select  Bisexual Book Awards finalists starting at 8:00 PM. The full list of finalists can be found here. The program will end with the Awards Ceremony and an after-party at Malaparte Restaurant.

The finalists who will be reading their works include:

• Fiction: Karen Connelly / The Change Room
• Romance: Kelly Jensen / Block and Strike
• Speculative Fiction: Julia Ember / The Seafarer’s Kiss
• Fiction: Amanda Kabak / The Mathematics of Change
• Poetry: Julene Tripp Weaver / Truth Be Bold: Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS
• Non-Fiction: Mary-Anne McAllum / Young Bisexual Women’s Experiences in Secondary Schools
• Memoir/Bio: Monica Meneghetti / What the Mouth Wants: A Memoir of Food, Love and Belonging

Live music will be provided by Diana Fuller, a bi singer-songwriter, who will be playing original music.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased in advance or at the door.  If you would like to purchase tickets in advance, click “Buy Now” on BWA’s website.

To RSVP and/or find more information about the event , please go to their Meetup or Facebook page.

For more information on the bi+ community, visit glaad.org/bisexual, and check out GLAAD’s resource guide for covering the bisexual+ community in the media.