BOA Blog

Library Journal recently published a refreshingly candid Q&A with BOA poet Devin Becker, author of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize-winning collection Shame | Shame. The piece touches on a bit of everything, from inspiration to the MFA experience, to the nitty-gritty details of publishing a book. When asked what inspired his debut collection, which humorously focuses on the everyday sort of shame born of small, socially clumsy moments in life, Becker says, "A lot of the things are mundane. Me and my coworkers sitting outside of a building having coffee, or my wife and I at a smoothie joint in a nearby...

Poets & Writers recently featured Marsha de la O in its "Writers Recommend" section, an online exclusive on all things inspiring to writers in their creative process. Here's what de la O, author of the new Isabella Gardner Poetry Award-winning Antidote for Night, had to say: “Begin with bleakness. Bring yourself to the bare room. Voices will assail you, reminding you how many times you’ve been hit on the head, hard, reminding you of the bad genes, the narrow valley in Bohemia where your ancestors left their lives as factory hands, as milk maids, with their natural and legitimate children in...

The Santa Barbara Independent recently published a compelling interview with David Starkey and Antidote for Night author Marsha de la O, exploring the new collection's noir tendencies, de la O's hypnotizing reading style, and her process of going from elementary school teacher to full-time poetry writer. "Antidote for Night is so rich with imagery and characters and incident. It’s a beautiful book, but it’s also very dark," says Starkey. De la O contrasts topics on themes of darkness and her seer-like reading voice with light, congenial, and insightful humor--even imagining her book being read by Philip Marlowe in a Raymond...

These past few months have been a whirlwind of exciting awards news for BOA authors and titles! On Friday, October 23, poet Geffrey Davis (Revising the Storm, 2014) attended the 2015 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award ceremony in Washington, DC, where he was honored with the 2015 Hurston/Wright Finalist Award for poetry. Only one winner and one finalist were selected for each category. The 2015 poetry judges were Chris Abani, Alison Joseph, and Monica Hand. Here is what they have to say about Revising the Storm: "A finely wright meditative collection that calls to mind poets such as Carl Phillips and Jay Wright—yet,...

Library Journal has named Nickole Brown's Fanny Says a Best Book of 2015 for Poetry! According to LJ Editor Henrietta Verma: "We agonized, we discussed, we pondered, and most of all we read, read, read. The results are below: lists of what the LJ Reviews team can honestly say are the best titles published in 2015. They include a Top Ten list of the most outstanding titles of the year, both fiction and nonfiction; followed by 'More of the Best,'—the titles that we just couldn’t let go of although they didn’t make it to the top ten; and the best...