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BOA Editions

Independent publisher of poetry, short fiction, and poetry in translation. 45 years of fostering readership and appreciation of contemporary literature.

Established in 1976, BOA Editions, Ltd. is a not-for-profit publisher of poetry and other literary works which fosters readership and appreciation of contemporary literature. By identifying, cultivating, and publishing both new and established poets and selecting authors of unique literary talent, BOA brings high quality literature to the public.

05/29/2026

FINAL DAYS: Submit your manuscript for consideration to Boa’s Short Fiction Prize! Deadline: 11:59pm on May 31st. We look forward to reading your work!

Please visit www.boaeditions.org for rules & guidlines.

05/20/2026

Women poets of color: submit your complete manuscript for consideration to Boa’s
Blessing the Boats Selections, open now through June 15th!

Selections read by Editor-at-Large, Evie Shockley.
One Poet Receives: Book publication by Boa Editions in Fall 2028 and a $1,500 honorarium.

Blessing the Boats Selections is named after Lucille Clifton’s National Book Award winning collection, Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems (Boa, 2000), in honor and celebration of her enduring legacy. Submissions are thus open to all women poets of color in the U.S., including poets who identify as cis, trans, and non-binary people who are comfortable in a space that centers on women’s experiences, regardless of citizenship and publication history.

Submissions are invited through Submittable or by post mail.
There is no submission fee associated with this reading period.
Visit boaeditions.org for a full list of eligibility requirements and submission guidelines.

As the 2025-2026 Blessing the Boats Selections Editor-at-Large, Evie Shockley will read submissions and select the final manuscript for publication.

About Jordan E. Franklin's book make it to the end (of the movie), Blessing the Boats Selection 2025, Evie Shockley writes, “I was ultimately most drawn to Jordan E. Franklin’s moving, inventive, highly compelling collection… for how it deploys one of Lucille Clifton’s characteristic practices: reworking tropes from our shared culture(s), including pop culture, to make them speak anew to concerns both deeply personal and widely felt.”

Submit your manuscript today to show us what your poems can do!

05/19/2026

🎧 Boa Executive Publisher Peter Conners discusses AI in the arts on WXXI’s “Connections with Evan Dawson"! Listen today wherever you get your podcasts- link in bio!

05/13/2026

Boa is thrilled to announce that acclaimed poet Jennifer Chang will judge the 26th annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, which will open for submissions on August 1!

Jennifer Chang’s An Authentic Life received the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Her other books include Some Say the Lark and The History of Anonymity. She has received the William Carlos Williams Award, the Library of Virginia Award in Poetry, the Levinson Prize from Poetry, and fellowships from the Elizabeth Murray Artists Residency, MacDowell, and Yaddo. She teaches at the University of Texas in Austin.

Established in 2000, the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize is awarded annually to honor a poet’s first full-length collection of poetry. The winner is selected each year by a nationally recognized poet from a competitive pool of manuscripts. Winning manuscripts are published within the A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series. Recent Poulin Prize winners have included Splashed Things by Leigh Lucas, Second Nature by Chaun Ballard, and Beforelight by Matthew Gellman. Other renowned debuts in the New Poets of America Series include Rose by Li-Young Lee, Awake by Dorianne Laux, and The Philosopher's Club by Kim Addonizio.

Submissions for the 26th annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize will be accepted August 1– November 30, 2026, with the winner announced in spring 2027. Eligibility requirements and submission guidelines for the Poulin Prize are available here.

05/12/2026

Submissions are open now through June 15th for Blessing the Boats Selections!
Women poets of color are invited to submit one complete manuscript for consideration.

Selections read by Editor-at-Large, Evie Shockley.
One Poet Receives: Book publication by Boa Editions in Fall 2028 and a $1,500
honorarium.

Blessing the Boats Selections is named after Lucille Clifton’s National Book Award winning collection, Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems (Boa, 2000), in honor
and celebration of her enduring legacy. Submissions are thus open to all women poets
of color in the U.S., including poets who identify as cis, trans, and non-binary people
who are comfortable in a space that centers on women’s experiences, regardless of
citizenship and publication history.

Submissions are invited through Submittable or by post mail.
There is no submission fee associated with this reading period.
Visit boaeditions.org for a full list of eligibility requirements and submission guidelines.

Michelle Phuong Ho, whose book Bone Symphony (Boa, 2026) was selected for
Blessing the Boats Selections 2024, said, “I’m overjoyed that my first poetry collection
will enter the world as a Blessing the Boats Selection. It’s an honor for the book to be
chosen by Aracelis Girmay, whose writing has been a guiding light for my own work,
and to join the incredible lineage of poets BOA has supported over the last 50 years.”
Swipe to see Bone Symphony and other previous Blessing the Boats Selections, and
consider submitting your work today!

05/08/2026

🎙️ Positive Blatherings host Scott Fitzgerald interviews Boa Publisher and Executive Director, Peter Conners, in an episode entitled "The Deadhead Running the Poetry Press That Put Rochester on the Map". Peter discusses Boa's origins, his personal writing journey, 22 years working at Boa, digital poetry formats, and the future of independent literature.

Watch Positive Blatherings on ROC Vox's YouTube channel, link in bio!

05/07/2026

Do you want to see YOUR book on OUR shelves? Submit your short fiction by May 31 for a chance to become a part of the Boa family!

05/06/2026

🧵 Hear Derrick Austin discuss his writing process, the evolution of THIS ELEGANCE, and what's next for him in this self-interview!

THIS ELEGANCE is now available for purchase on the Boa online store 💫

05/05/2026

📣 NEW RELEASE ALERT! 📣 We are so excited to announce that Derrick Austin's third collection with Boa is out now! Happy pub day Derrick! Visit our online store at boaeditions.org to purchase a copy of this stunning collection.

Book Description:
Interweaving the sacred and the erotic, This Elegance engages with visual arts through the concept of sacra conversazione (“sacred conversation”), a style of Renaissance painting that imagines divine communion across time and space. Here, artists, thinkers, and pop icons commune in a similar sacred dialogue—Kathleen Collins, André Leon Talley, Richmond Barthé, Lyle Ashton Harris, Juan de Pareja, Janelle Monáe, Symone, and others appear as guiding spirits and creative kin.

For a Black, q***r person so often dislocated from time and place, pleasure becomes an act of resistance—a grounding in the now. This Elegance is a love song—an offering to Black artistry, a tribute to visionary lives, and a testament to the power of beauty in even our most precarious moments.

05/04/2026

Our Blessing the Boats Selections is open and accepting submissions from May 1st to June 15th. Blessing the Boats Selections spotlights poetry collections by women of color. There is no submission fee associated with this reading period. Don't miss out on this incredible chance to share your story!

🌊 Selections read by Editor-at-Large, Evie Shockley.
🌊 One Poet Receives: Book publication by Boa Editions in Fall 2028 and a $1,500 honorarium.

ABOUT BOA'S BLESSING THE BOATS SELECTION:
Blessing the Boats Selections spotlights poetry collections by women of color. Blessing the Boats Selections is named after Lucille Clifton’s National Book Award-winning collection, Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems (Boa, 2000), in honor and celebration of her enduring legacy. Lucille Clifton's writings of Black life and Black female life have shaped a sense of what is possible for so many. In the poem that begins "won't you celebrate with me," she writes: "born in babylon / both nonwhite and woman / what did i see to be except myself?" Blessing the Boats Selections titles walk behind and grow out of the poetry of those lines.

Submissions are thus open to all women poets of color in the U.S., including poets who identify as cis, trans, and non-binary people who are comfortable in a space that centers on women’s experiences, regardless of citizenship and publication history.

Our hope is that the Blessing the Boats Selections will further facilitate encounters between readers and writers of some of the most extraordinary texts of our time.

HOW TO SUBMIT:
Submissions are invited through Submittable or by post mail.
Visit our website for a full list of eligibility requirements and submission guidelines: https://www.boaeditions.org/pages/blessing-the-boats-selections

Address

250 North Goodman Street, Suite 306
Rochester, NY
14607

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Telephone

+15855463410

Website

http://boaeditions.org/

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