POZ has named Randy Boyd’s The Unfrozen Few, Book One: Welcome to the Future one of five nominees for Best in Literature in its 11th Annual POZ Awards, which spotlight the best representations of HIV and AIDS in media and culture. The story follows a group of AIDS patients who wake up in present-day America after being cryogenically frozen in the 1980s.

In announcing the nominees, POZ describes the novel as “a story about surviving both illness and erasure.”

Fellow nominees include Sara Youngblood Gregory’s Dead Boys in Space, Natalie Adler’s Waiting on a Friend, Andrew Durbin’s The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s Terry Dactyl. POZ’s editors select the nominees; readers vote for the winners.

Founded in 1994 to amplify the voices of people living with HIV, POZ published an excerpt of The Unfrozen Few in May and named Boyd to the 2018 POZ 100.

“Being nominated for Best in Literature in the 2026 POZ Awards is a real honor,” Boyd said. “I believe deeply in these characters—these lost souls from the 1980s trying to make sense of the modern world—because in some ways, that’s what it can feel like, being a long-term survivor. It means a great deal to know that story is connecting with other people too.”

Vote for The Unfrozen Few on POZ.com →

About Randy Boyd: Randy Boyd is the author of five novels, with his first four earning five Lambda Literary Award finalist honors. His latest novel, The Unfrozen Few, Book One: Welcome to the Future, is a 2026 American Fiction Awards Finalist in LGBTQ+ Fiction, published by West Beach Books and available in print and digital editions. More information is available at RandyBoydAuthor.com.

Media Contact: Steven V., West Beach Books — stevenv@westbeachbooks.com