BOA Blog

Luther Hughes is the author of A Shiver in the Leaves, which was published by BOA Editions on September 27, 2022. A Shiver in the Leaves explores the interior and exterior symbiosis of a gay Black man finding refuge from the threat of depression and death through love and desire. Learn more about Luther and his work through this exclusive self-interview! A Shiver in the Leaves wrestles with a lot of different obsessions like Blackness, depression, Seattle, trees—to name a few. Of these obsessions, crows seem to be the staple of the book, insomuch the opening poem is about a painting of crows by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Where did this obsession with...

Chen Chen is the author of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, which was published by BOA Editions on September 13, 2022. In his highly anticipated second collection, Chen continues his investigation of family, both blood and chosen, examining what one inherits and what one invents, as a queer Asian American living through an era of Trump, mass shootings, and the COVID-19 pandemic.  Read on to learn more about Chen and his new poetry collection in this exclusive self-interview!   This is your second book. What makes it different from your first? I think it’s at once more mature and sillier—there’s more grief and rage...

Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes is the author of Are We Ever Our Own, which was published by BOA Editions on May 24, 2022 and won the BOA Short Fiction Prize. Moving between Cuba and the U.S., the stories in Are We Ever Our Own trace the paths of the women of the far-flung Armando Castell family. Learn more about Fuentes and her work through this exclusive self-interview!   What inspired the stories in this collection? These stories are wide ranging in terms of genre, time period, style, focus, but many of them were inspired by the work of visual and performance artists. I would fall in love with...

Dustin Pearson is the author of A Season in Hell with Rimbaud, which was published by BOA Editions on May 10, 2022. In A Season in Hell with Rimbaud, a man traverses the fantastical and grotesque landscape of Hell in pursuit of his brother, pondering their now fractured relationship. Learn more about Dustin and his work through this exclusive self-interview! At the beginning of A Season in Hell with Rimbaud, readers learn that the speaker’s Hell is a state of mind first entered into while tossing a balloon to his older brother. Not long after that, readers learn just how otherwise charged that memory is, but perhaps just...

Heather Sellers is the author of Field Notes from the Flood Zone, which was published by BOA Editions on April 26, 2022. Sprung from her daily observation journals, haunted by ghosts from the past, this collection is an elegy for the two great shaping forces in a life: heartbreaking family struggle and a collective lost treasure, our stunning, singular, desecrated Florida, and all its remnant beauty. Read on to learn more about Heather, her newest poetry collection, and her writing process! What is your process for writing a poem? Work by eye. Write by hand. Write every day. Read a lot. Most...