Windsor, Ont. writer Casey Plett and Peguis First Nation author Joshua Whitehead have won 2019 Lambda Literary Awards for their debut novels.

The Lambda Literary Awards annually celebrate LGBTQ writing from around the world across 24 categories. The winners were announced at a ceremony in New York on June 3, 2019.

Plett won the transgender fiction category for Little Fish, the story of a 30-year-old transgender woman named Wendy, who reflects on her life as an surprising family secret emerges. Plett also won the 2019 Amazon Canada First Novel Award for this book.

Whitehead took home the gay fiction prize for Jonny Appleseed. The novel tells the story of an Indigenous cybersex worker known as "NDN glitter princess" who contemplates a trip back to his reserve for his stepfather's funeral. Jonny Appleseed was also shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

Vancouver and Calgary writer Larissa Lai won the lesbian fiction category for her third novel, The Tiger Flu. The cyberpunk thriller follows a doctor apprentice named Kirilow who seeks a "starfish" — a person who can regenerate their own limbs and organs — after his partner dies.

Australian-born and Montreal-based artist Tommi Parrish also took home a prize. The Lie and How We Told It, a story about two estranged friends struggling to reconnect, won the LGBTQ graphic novels category.