By Brian Dunlap

Last year Fresno native and L.Á. based poet and UC Riverside professor, Sara Borjas, published her debut collection Heart Like A Window, Mouth Like A Cliff,” from Noemi Press, to critical acclaim. It’s a poetry collection about her chicanx heritage, immediate family, and personal journey, in terms of love, chicanx gender rolls and expectations and, as she calls herself, of being a “Pocha.”

Earlier this month Borjas received more good news about Heart Like A Window… It was one of 13 general and five categorical winners of a 41^st Annual American Book Award. Another member of the L.Á. literary community, after Jayne Cortez (Mouth on Paper, 1980), Hisaye Yamamoto (Lifetime Achievement Award, 1986), Michelle T. Clinton and Sesshu Foster (Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural Poetry, 1990), Reyna Grande (Across A Hundred Mountains, 2007), Tom Lutz (Do Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers and Bums in America, 2008), Sesshu Foster (World Ball Notebook, 2010), Stephen D. Gutierrez, who is from the City of Commerce (Live from Fresno y Los, 2010), Will Alexander (Singing In Magnetic Hoofbeat: Essays, Prose, Texts, Interviews and a Lecture, 2013), Alex Espinoza (The Five Acts of Diego León, 2014), Peter J. Harris (Black Man of Happiness Project, 2015), Laila Lalami (The Moor’s Account, 2015), Joseph Rios (Shadowboxing: Poems and Impersonations, 2018) and Rachelle Cruz (God’s Will For Monsters, 2018), to win this prestigious award.

The American Book Award, administered by the Before Columbus Foundation, aims to “provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community.” It is to “honor excellence in American literature without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre.”

Congratulations to Sara Borjas for winning an American Book Award. It’s always so rewarding when hard work pays off.