Have received numerous awards and grants including three American Library Association Notable Book and Gay / Lesbian Non-fiction Award nominations, a Pushcart nomination, an IPPY Ten Best Books Award, an Audie Award, an AIGA 50 Best Books Award, a Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival Award, a North Carolina Writers Network Blumenthal Writer and Reader Award, a Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant, a Duke University Chronicle Award, a Writer's Digest Editor Award for best E-Zine poetry outlet, a 1998 Associated Press Holiday Gift Giving Ideas, and a grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. His work as an educator was highlighted in The Compassionate Classroom: Lessons that Nurture Wisdom and Empathy by Jane Dalton and Lyn Fairchild. Beam is also the recipient of a Preservation Award from the 2004 Preservation Society of Chapel Hill, and the first annual Provost Award for Public Service from the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Public Service in 2000. His highly regarded readings were chosen thrice by The Independent Weekly as Best Bets & Eight Days a Week Our Picks, and as a Smart Bet by Asheville's Mountain Xpress newspaper. Beam has read at two North Carolina Literary Festivals and the UNC-CH North Carolina Collection's Second Sunday Reading series, was inducted in the North Carolina Writers Conference, was an invited guest to the Durham Public Library's Centennial NC Writers Gala, a 2002 Parade Marshal for the NC Gay Pride Festival, and served for ten years as a judge for the Lambda Book Awards.