Judges pull award nomination for book by Lauren Hough

NEW YORK (AP) — Judges for a prominent LGBTQ literature award withdrew a planned nomination for Lauren Hough's acclaimed essay collection, “Leaving Isn’t The Hardest Thing," after the author used sharp and sometimes profane language in Twitter exchanges with critics of a novel she had expressed admiration for.

Hough was supposed to be a Lambda Award finalist for best lesbian memoir, one of 24 categories announced last week by the Lambda Literary organization. But her name did not appear. In a letter sent to her publisher, Penguin Random House, shortly before the announcement and shared this week with The Associated Press, Lambda cited a series of tweets (some deleted) from early this month that showed a “troubling hostility toward transgender critics and trans-allies” who had challenged the premise of Sandra Newman's upcoming novel “The Men.”

“We have to hold the line in how we communicate with each other,” Lambda co-executive director Cleopatra Jach Acquaye said in a recent telephone interview. “We want people to treat each other with respect and treat each other with dignity.”

Hough, who has written about the controversy on Substack, declined further comment Wednesday.

Newman's book, scheduled for June, imagines a post-male society in which people with the Y chromosome have disappeared. Her publisher calls “The Men” a “gripping, beautiful, and disquieting novel of feminist utopias and impossible sacrifices that interrogates the dream of a perfect society.” On Twitter, Hough wrote that she had read an early copy and could hardly find the words for how good it was, emphasizing “good” with an expletive.

In screenshots viewed by The Associated Press, Newman describes “The Men” on Twitter and one follower responds: “Pretty sure this terf plot has been published four or...