BOA Editions

LAST CHANCE to submit your manuscript for consideration to Boa’s Blessing the Boats Selections! Submit your work by June 15th for a chance to join other women poets of color in upholding Boa’s long tradition of celebrating astounding poetry.

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.

Web De Sol Review of Books describes Clifton’s work as “poems that tell the truth, poems that insist on residing within the reader, poems by a poet who seeks and achieves the ability to be a vehicle for those who may not otherwise speak.”

Submit your manuscript before the reading period closes on June 15th, and join Clifton in telling your truth through your poems.

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!

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.

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!