Trinidad-raised, Ontario-based author and visual artist Shani Mootoo has been awarded Lambda Literary’s Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize. The award recognizes two LGBTQ–identified writers who have released multiple books and “show promise to continue publishing high quality work for years to come.” New York author James Earl Hardy was also named a recipient.

Poets Julie Enszer and Reginald Harris selected the authors, saying in a statement that Mootoo’s work “continues to present diverse, complex characters rooted in LGBTQ communities in powerful and provocative ways.” Her most recent novel, Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab (Anchor Canada), was longlisted for the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Mootoo and Hardy will receive their $5,000 prizes at the annual Lambda Literary Awards ceremony in New York City on June 12.