BOA Blog

June is a prodigious month to celebrate Lucille Clifton’s life and work. Born on this day, June 27, in 1936, her singular poetry spans over fifty years. Clifton’s posthumous collection, How To Carry Water: Selected Poems Of Lucille Clifton, edited by Aracelis Girmay (BOA, 2020) releases in paperback this Fall 2021. Lucille Clifton’s many accolades and awards include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Frost Medal, and an Emmy Award. BOA Editions published nine books by Lucille Clifton, including Quilting, Mercy, Voices, and the following extraordinary collections. Blessing The Boats won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2000. Next:...

June is Pride Month, a welcome celebration to increase visibility, acceptance and share in the resilience of the queer community. We’ve compiled a selection of BOA books by queer authors that showcase the varied experiences of the queer community. These authors exist at different intersections of identities, whether that’s being a person of color, an immigrant, a single mother, or having a disability, and all share in the universal community of being queer. True vulnerability exists within these pages, as these wonderful authors celebrate, negotiate, and trouble what Pride means. Queerness comes in many forms; no matter how you identify,...

Rochester, NY — Naomi Shihab Nye has been selected as a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Often referred to as “the American Nobel,” the Neustadt International Prize is a biennial international literary award sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and managed by the university's literary magazine, World Literature Today. Nye was nominated for this honor by the poet Tarfia Faizullah. Robert Con Davis-Undiano, prize sponsor and Executive Director of World Literature Today, said of this year’s nominees, “Literature is a key component of our ability to recognize what makes us human, and the work of the Neustadt...

Have you ever wondered about the staff members that keep BOA running? Well, wonder no more! We’ve created a short interview series so you can get to know the BOA staff. In our final installment of our Get To Know the Staff Series, we have Aimee Senisé Conners (She/Her), BOA’s Finance Manager. BOA: Hi Aimee! What’s your role at BOA? Aimee: Finance Manager. I take care of everything that has to do with money: paying bills, fiscal reporting, managing cash in & out, purchasing, and, most importantly, calculating and paying our authors their royalties! BOA: How long have you been working...