Drowning Boy's Guide to Water

Winner of the inaugural Autumn House Press Rising Writer Prize, Cameron Barnett’s debut The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water, explores the complexity of race and the body for a black man in today’s America.

Cameron Barnett is a poet and teacher living in Pittsburgh, PA. He is the author of Murmur and The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water, the winner of the Autumn House Press Rising Writer Prize and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. Other honors include a 2019 Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Award for Emerging Artist and serving as the ’22-’24 Emerging Black Writer in Residence at Chatham University. Cameron teaches at his middle school alma mater, Falk Laboratory School. His work explores the complexity of race, place, and relationships for Black people in America.