BOA Blog

Rochester, N.Y. — BOA Editions is delighted to announce that The Tiny Journalist by Naomi Shihab Nye has won the 2020 Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. The Texas Institute of Letters (TIL) announced the winners of this year’s TIL Literary Awards this morning via press release. TIL President Carmen Tafolla is especially proud of the “quality and the diversity of this year’s award-winners, which range from teachers to journalists to an astronaut, reflecting some of the exciting variety in authors’ experiences, styles, themes, and genres.” The Tiny Journalist is Naomi...

Rochester, N.Y. — BOA Editions has been approved for a $35,000 ArtWorks grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the publication and promotion of eight new books of contemporary poetry. Overall, the National Endowment for the Arts has approved 1,187 grants totaling $27.3 million in the first round of fiscal year 2020 funding to support arts projects in every state in the nation, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.  The Art Works funding category supports projects that focus on public engagement with, and access to, various forms of excellent art across the nation;...

Rochester, N.Y. — BOA Editions is excited to announce that The Rapture Index: A Suburban Bestiary by Molly Reid is on the longlist for the 2020 PEN America Literary Award PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. PEN America announced the ten finalists for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize on their website this morning, December 13, 2019. This year’s judges for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize were Aimee Bender, Jamel Brinkley, Samantha Hunt, Randa Jarrar, and Elissa Schappell. “I'm absolutely thrilled to be in such impressive company on the longlist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize,” said Reid. “I'm...

Rochester, N.Y. — BOA Editions, Ltd. announced today that it has been awarded a $23,000 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) for FY2020 with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. NYSCA grants support the transformative impact of the performing, literary, visual and media arts in New York State. BOA Editions is one of 462 arts organizations across New York State receiving a total of $8,383,993 million in grants through NYSCA’s Round II FY2020 funding to support arts programs that drive New York State’s economic growth and community health....

Rochester, New York –– BOA Editions, Ltd. is pleased to announce that E.C. Osondu is the winner of the ninth annual BOA Short Fiction Prize for his collection Alien Stories. BOA Publisher Peter Conners selected the winning manuscript from a pool of more than 320 submissions. Osondu will receive a $1,000 honorarium and book publication by BOA Editions, Ltd. within the American Reader Series in spring 2021. “Thank you, BOA Editions, for opening your arms and giving a home to Alien Stories. Particularly poignant because these are for the most part stories about characters who seesaw between finding a home...