BOA Blog

We are proud to announce that Derrick Austin’s Trouble the Water (BOA Editions, 2016) has been selected as a finalist for two prestigious LGBT literary awards: The Publishing Triangle's Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry."Never in my lifetime have LGBTQ stories felt so important as a means of being recognized and counted, as a form of resistance to this dangerous political climate we find ourselves in,” said Lambda Literary Executive Director Tony Valenzuela. “The Lammys are a celebration of great queer literature, and this year they’re also a reminder that our community of writers, publishers, and...

             Poets House and City Lore are currently celebrating Poetic Voices of the Muslim World, an initiative the two organizations have co-developed over the last decade. Having just returned to New York City after a four-year, 11-city tour, Poetic Voices of the Muslim World is an exhibit that highlights "the many poetries and poetic traditions from diverse Muslim cultures across Asia, Africa, and the US." Poignant for our current moment, it also "celebrates poetry from most of the countries targeted by the travel ban."We are moved to see the important words of Syrian poet Adonis and translator Khaled Mattawa, among so many others, come alive through...

Tessie Hutchinson’s Apron: A Thank You Note to Shirley Jackson & to BOA I don’t remember the first time I read Shirley Jackson’s iconic story “The Lottery,” but I do know that every time I reread that story I can’t help but think: Please God, don’t let me die right after doing the dishes.Her fingers still wet from the sink, Tessie Hutchinson scrambles to reach the village square in time for the lottery. Once there, she wipes her hands on her apron. She’s still in that apron when stones, hurled by her neighbors, rain down upon her.When “The Lottery” was...

Kirkus Reviews has awarded the Kirkus Star to Zach Powers, for his new short fiction collection, Gravity Changes. In a glowing review, the BOA Short Fiction Prize-winning collection is called a "fanciful take on life, love, tragedy, and human connection that draws its strength from insight instead of artifice."According to Kirkus, "On average, Kirkus’s editors award the Kirkus Star to 10 percent of all the books they assign for review. Their decisions are based on their long-running, deep knowledge of contemporary trends in publishing and their appreciation for exceptional writing and illustration." Books that receive the Kirkus Star are automatically considered for the prestigious...

I’ll never, at least not this side of dementia, forget the moment when I got the voicemail from BOA Editions publisher Peter Conners saying he wanted to talk with me. I was lying in a hammock in my in-laws’ backyard. Perhaps I’d retreated there to avoid arguing politics with my father-in-law, or maybe I was avoiding a different kind of argument with my not-yet-wife—who knows? It was a standard rope hammock, nothing fancy, but I was very happy to be in it, even before I got the voicemail. Hammocks are one of the few unimpeachably good inventions human beings have...