In addition to the previously noted poets, BOA is proud to publish dozens of other poets and authors whose books have been awarded or named finalists for more than 100 awards by such organizations as the Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, PEN Center, National Book Critics Circle, The Publishing Triangle, Great Lakes Colleges Association, and the Jewish Book Council. BOA books are also regularly reviewed in national newspapers, magazines, and literary journals. On a regional level, BOA publications have won the Northern California Book Award for Poetry Translation, Minnesota Book Award, Maine Literary Award Winner for Poetry, The Colorado Book Award for Poetry, Writers’ League of Texas Book Awards for Poetry, and the Israel Prize in Literature, among others. In 2007, BOA expanded its American Reader Series to include collections of short fiction and in 2010 the BOA Short Fiction Prize was established. To-date, BOA has published more than 30 fiction collections, including 13 winners of the BOA Short Fiction Prize. These short story collections feature voices more concerned with the artfulness of their writing than the twists and turns of plot, and have gone on to bring new and important attention to this underserved literary genre.
As an organization, BOA was recipient of a 2001 New York State Governor's Arts Award for overall artistic excellence. In 2018, the Mayor of the City of Rochester issued a proclamation dedicating April 20th as BOA Editions Day in our hometown of Rochester, NY. Additionally, in 2005 and again in 2014, the University of Rochester’s Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP) acquired BOA Editions’ publishing archives and created the BOA Collection. This collection corresponds to all of BOA’s activities and the writers and poets it publishes. A previous collection of BOA archives is located in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University where the collection was acquired in 1996 along with the papers of BOA’s founder, the late poet, editor, and translator A. Poulin, Jr. (1938-1996). That collection is titled A. Poulin papers and BOA Editions records.
In honor of BOA’s founder, BOA established the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize in 2003. The Poulin Prize is awarded annually to a first collection of poetry. Poulin Prize winners are selected by a distinguished poet who also writes a foreword to the published collection. Previous Poulin Prize winners include Chen Chen, Keetje Kuipers, Geffrey Davis, Janice N. Harrington, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Derrick Austin, Hugh Martin, and more than a dozen other noteworthy poets. With the generous support of the family of poet, actress, and associate editor of Poetry magazine, Isabella Gardner (1915-1981), BOA also biennially awards the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award to a poet in mid-career with a new book of exceptional merit. Previous Gardner Award winners include Naomi Shihab Nye, Bruce Weigl, Aracelis Girmay, and Jillian Weise, among others.
BOA currently operates under the guidance of Executive Director and Publisher Peter Conners. Conners joined BOA Editions as Marketing Director in 2003 and was named Publisher in 2010. The title of Executive Director was added in 2020. Under his editorial direction, BOA books have garnered dozens of prestigious awards including 3 James Laughlin Awards, the Whiting Award, the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction, and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize which is given by the Academy of American Poets in recognition of “the most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States in the previous calendar year.” He also spearheaded the founding of BOA’s fiction series, Blessing the Boats Selections, and, most recently, the BOA Audiobooks Series. Additionally, Conners is an author with 10 published books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. In 2022, the University of Rochester’s Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP) acquired 30 years of Conners’ personal writing archives and founded the Peter Conners Literary Collection.
And we’re just getting started! These are some of the highlights from the BOA story so far, but, as we like to say, “the best is yet to come.”