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 is proud to announce that The Second O of Sorrow by Sean Thomas Dougherty has won the 2019 Housatonic Book Award for Poetry. Western Connecticut State University's MFA in Creative and Professional Writing announced the winners of the 2019 Housatonic Book Awards on their website last week. The Second O of Sorrow celebrates the struggles, the dignity, and the joys of working-class life in the Rust Belt. Finding delight in everyday moments—a night at a packed karaoke bar, a father and daughter planting a garden, a biography of LeBron James as a metaphor for Ohio—these poems take pride in...

Hello readers! Join our team of interns as they explore over 40 years of our publication history and share their passion for some of their favorite titles from BOA Editions. In this post, Sarah W. looks at the reflections of memory in Aurelie Sheehan's collection of histories. The Paradox of Nostalgia within Jewelry Box Hi there, readers! My name is Sarah Watkins. I am one of BOA’s current interns! Right now, I spend half my days in the BOA office, and the other half in class at The College at Brockport. I will be graduating at the end of this upcoming semester...