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, Ltd. within the American Reader Series in spring 2024. In addition to the winning manuscript, Conners selected a finalist and three runners-up from the pool of submissions:

Winner:
Exile in Guyville by Amy Lee Lillard

Finalist:
Where Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere to Go by Joe Baumann

Runners-Up:
My Mother’s Boyfriends by Samantha Schoech
I Carry a Map that Falls in Love with the World by Patrick Lawler
Escape Velocity by Ellen Rhudy

Amy Lee Lillard's fiction and nonfiction appears in Vox, LitHub, Barrelhouse, Foglifter, Epiphany, Off Assignment, Autostraddle, and more. Lillard was shortlisted for the 2017 Berlin Writing Prize and named one of Epiphany’s Breakout 8 Writers in 2018. She is the author of Dig Me Out, a short story collection from Atelier26 Books. She's also the co-creator and co-host of Broads and Books, the funny and feminist book podcast.

BOA Editions will accept manuscripts for the 13th annual BOA Short Fiction Prize between April 1 and May 31, 2023. An entry form and a $25 fee are required. Complete guidelines for the BOA Short Fiction Prize are available at https://www.boaeditions.org/SFP.