The New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA) has both named Susan Barba’s geode (Black Sparrow Press) and Wesley McNair’s Dwellers in the House of the Lord (Godine) as finalists for in the 2020 New England Book Awards. Winners will be announced in September.
Barba’s powerful, earth-centric collection just received rave reviews in both the Los Angeles Review of Books and Hyperallergic. McNair’s book-length narrative poem grappling with family and politics was recently excerpted in the widely distributed newspaper column American Life in Poetry, and translation rights were recently acquired by Italian publisher Fuorilinea.