Andrés N. Ordorica – författare

Shortlisted for the Jhalak Poetry Prize.Holy Boys seeks to address the lingering echoes of adolescence and the pains of living a life in the shadows of unspeakable desires and all-consuming longing. These poems are a means of finding language in youth, gathering experience in pubescence, and serving as testament to survival in a world that demands silences throughout queer life.These poems are an archive which maps physical desire and emotional needs while pushing past dogma and self-hating. They are a means of naming the many lovers and loved ones who have helped move the speaker from boyhood into manhood. This is a collection that is informed by faith, sexuality, loss and love, a celebration of the growing pains that eventually allow us to unfurl into whole beings.

‘Hearing you say my name was a way of seeing myself as I had never seen myself … you gave my name new meaning, new weight.’Nerdy and shy, scholarship student Daniel de La Luna arrives at college nervous to meet his golden-haired, athletic roommate, whose Facebook photos depict a boy just like those who made Daniel’s school years hell.Sam Morris is not what he had imagined, though. As the two settle into college life they drink tequila under the stars, go on long runs through snow-covered hills, explore freshman nightlife, and inch closer until they find themselves in love.But their blissful first year is over all too soon. Daniel’s summer in his ancestral homeland of México becomes a rollercoaster of revelations, before his life is brutally upended by the unimaginable.How We Named the Stars is a tale of love, heartache and learning to honour the dead. Daniel and Sam will leave you forever changed.