BOA Blog

Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of A Tinderbox in Three Acts, which was published by BOA Editions on October 11, 2022 as a Blessing the Boats Selection, chosen by Aracelis Girmay. In her fourth poetry collection, Oka performs a lyric accounting of the anti-Communist genocide of 1965, which, led by the Indonesian military and with American assistance, erased and devastated millions of lives in Indonesia. Learn more about Cynthia's new book through this interview with BOA Fall '22 intern, Briar-Rose. Briar Rose: A Tinderbox in Three Acts contains poems, notes, interviews, "textual samplings'' from archival collections, and even drawings. What inspired you to...

Rochester, NY — BOA Editions is excited to announce that Subhaga Crystal Bacon has been awarded the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award for her collection Transitory, which is forthcoming from BOA in fall 2023 within the American Poets Continuum Series.  "The joy of returning to the BOA Editions family has been crowned by their selection of Transitory for the Gardner Award! Following Derrick Austin's Tenderness, is a special thrill, and all the past recipients are poets whose work I admire. I'm honored beyond words to be included in their ranks," said Bacon. The Isabella Gardner Award carries an honorarium of $1,000...

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...

Rochester, N.Y. —BOA Editions, Ltd. is pleased to announce that Amy Lee Lillard of Des Moines, Iowa is the winner of the twelfth annual BOA Short Fiction Prize for her collection Exile in Guyville. BOA Publisher Peter Conners selected the winning manuscript. “Amy Lee Lillard’s Exile in Guyville hits with the impact of a scorching punk rock song. It’s smart, funny, intriguing, a little scary at parts, and thoroughly bold from start to finish. Frankly, it’s one of the most badass story collections I’ve ever read,” said Conners. Lillard will receive a $1,000 honorarium and book publication by BOA Editions,...

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...