BOA Blog

Amy Lee Lillard’s Exile in Guyville, is the perfect read for those who love speculative and dystopian fiction. Lillard achieves a type of storytelling that is simultaneously futuristic and present, that reimagines but holds true to the experiences of women today. To me, her collection of short stories stand as testaments to the deep longing for more which lives in so many women—a longing to be seen, heard, and to achieve more than what is expected or available. In each of their worlds, the characters reach out for more than what they are given, whether for themselves or those they...

 As Black History Month comes to a close, this is your friendly reminder to read the work of Black authors year-round! Finish February or start March by snagging Sheila Carter-Jones' forthcoming collection, Every Hard Sweetness, recommended by BOA's fantastic spring 2024 intern, Jaenid Ayala!  --- In a time where we have become desensitized to Black voices & Black trauma, Every Hard Sweetness is a reminder that there are still stories left to tell, still narratives that have been forced to remain unfinished. Sheila Carter-Jones creatively composes a song which so many African American families have not had the chance to...

  Danielle Cadena Deulen is a writer, professor, and podcaster. Originally from the Northwest, she now lives in Atlanta where she teaches for the graduate creative writing program at Georgia State University. Her most recent poetry collection, Desire Museum, is out now from BOA Editions. Her previous collections include Our Emotions Get Carried Away Beyond Us, winner of the Barrow Street Book Contest and Lovely Asunder, which won the Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize and the Utah Book Award. Her memoir, The Riots, won the AWP Prize in Creative Nonfiction and the GLCA New Writers Award. She has been the recipient of an Oregon Literary...

Here at BOA, we're celebrating Pride Month by highlighting the work of our LGBTQ+ authors! For the final part in our series, BOA intern Sarah Skibickyj reviews Margaret Ray's GOOD GRIEF, THE GROUND, and Keetje Kuipers' ALL ITS CHARMS! Check out what Sarah had to say about them below!    Margaret Ray gives it direct with her honesty and dark humor in Good Grief, the Ground. Ray offers an interesting approach in exploring topics such as grief and anxiety and queer longing as a girl such as using “Wanda" in a couple poems which is described as “an invention. At worst: an aspirational...

Here at BOA, we're celebrating Pride Month by highlighting the work of our LGBTQ+ authors! We asked each of our wonderful summer interns to pick a title or two and write about them! For part two in our series, BOA intern Olivia Harkin reviews Alicia Mountain's Four in Hand and Chen Chen's Your Emergency Contact has Experienced an Emergency!  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The poetic form of a sonnet has always been utilized to express love, and Mountain revives it in Four in Hand to express queer love, creating a space for representation in a poetic form that’s typically been dominated by...