The entire BOA staff has returned from the AWP Conference in Denver, Colorado. Once again, the conference managed to be both exhausting and stimulating all at the same time. We got to spend time with dozens of BOA authors and FOBs (Friends of BOA) and we'll be posting photos and comments about the conference here soon (if you're our friend on Facebook, you've already seen some of those. If you're not... why aren't you?!). While we were gone, our books and authors accomplished a bunch of great things! Here are some of the highlights: [caption id="attachment_697" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Craig Morgan Teicher. BOA author. "][/caption] 1) Craig Morgan Teicher’s forthcoming Cradle Book received a “starred and boxed” review in this week’s Publisher’s Weekly. “Starred and boxed” means just that – they put a red star by the review and put a box around it to draw extra attention to the review. This is an amazing start to this unique collection of fables and stories. Cradle Book will be available by May 1st. Cradle Book Craig Morgan Teicher BOA (Consortium, dist.),$14 paper (72p) ISBN 978-1-934414-35-4 Thirty-three sublime, deceptively simple reflections on states of human awareness comprise this prose collection by poet Teicher (Brenda Is in the Room), who is also PW’s poetry editor. In bedtime-story selections grouped under themes of “Silence,” “Fear,” “Sleep,” Teicher gives voice to our suppressed terrors of the dark, animism, unclean urges, and supernatural convergences: a man is granted the wish of invisibility in “The Reward,” using the power to observe everything he can until he becomes “a repository... of moments that threaten to repeat themselves for all eternity,” in short, a poet; dust collecting in clumps in corners takes on life as “it is simply waiting for us to join it” (“The Dust”); a tree stump finds a remedy for its acute loneliness by engulfing a monk in its gnarled roots so that they can die together (“The Monk and the Stump”). The immutable condition of the stone becomes the metaphor for life in “The Story of the Stone.” Teicher’s subtly composed fables are effortless and enduring, celebrate the virtue of story above all, and render philosophers of his readers. (June) [caption id="attachment_729" align="alignleft" width="90" caption="Jeanne Marie Beaumont. BOA author."][/caption] 2) Jeanne Marie Beaumont’s 5-poem series "Letter from Limbo” from her forthcoming book, Burning of the Three Fires, won the Dana Award in Poetry. The Dana Awards were founded in 1996 by literature professor and poet Mary Elizabeth Parker with the financial backing of Michael Dana. The competition is currently based in Greensboro, North Carolina and has played an important role in launching the careers of several prominent writers, including Michael Pritchett, Danielle Trussoni, and Tina Chang. Congratulations, Jeanne! [caption id="attachment_373" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Sharon Bryan. BOA poet."][/caption] 3) An interview with BOA author Sharon Bryan – whose book Sharp Stars was awarded the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award for 2009 – is available for free at i-tunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/writers-at-cornell/id358133992. The interview was conducted as part of the Writers at Cornell series in which Host J. Robert Lennon interviews visiting writers to Cornell University, including Junot Diaz, Charles Simic, George Saunders, Heather McHugh, and many others. [caption id="attachment_734" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Sean Thomas Dougherty. BOA poet."][/caption] 4) Sean Thomas Dougherty (Broken Hallelujahs and, forthcoming, Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line) was interviewed last week on Cleveland's NPR station public radio 90.3. Sean was interviewed by Dee Perry who also interviewed the conductor for the Cleveland Orchestra and punk rock icon Henry Rollins on the same show. Quite a trio! You can listen to the interview online at: http://www.wcpn.org/WCPN/an/30178 For anyone in the Rochester area, Sean's interview is a great warm-up for the upcoming Rochester International Jazz Festival. Sean will be in Rochester during the festival to read with some musicians for BOA's "Jazz is Poetry" event! More details on that soon...