25 years of creative writing on health, illness, and healing

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  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • The Kings of Gowanus

    The Kings of Gowanus

    by Rae Meadows. “He spent his days, like most boys in the neighborhood, walking around, looking to get something for nothing. But today was fight day.” // continue reading

  • Coulrophobia

    Coulrophobia

    by Jacob M. Appel. “My father fancied himself a shrewd landlord—he refused to rent to lawyers, the children of lawyers, even a college girl who “had law school written all over her”—but he probably bit off too much when he… // continue reading

  • Terminal Device

    Terminal Device

    by Jennifer Lee. “Physical therapy is in the basement of the hospital, and they send them down in wheelchairs right after surgery.  It hurts, and people are always telling me what they can’t do—like I’m their sister and this is… // continue reading

  • A Doctor in the Court of the King of Nepal

    A Doctor in the Court of the King of Nepal

    by Itzhak Kronzon. “I labored to decipher the pidgin English until I at last understood that the King of Nepal wanted me, Dr. Itzhak Kronzon of the Bronx Municipal Hospital, to come to his royal court.” // continue reading

  • Snapshots of Bellevue

    Snapshots of Bellevue

    by Dewitt Stetten, Jr. “On the east side of First Avenue, between 26th and 31st Streets in Manhattan, stood the ancient brick pile that was Bellevue Hospital.” // continue reading

  • A Staircase in the Fog

    A Staircase in the Fog

    by Robin Fast. “Beneath this rag-and-bone sky, the only shadow cast is memory. It was wintertime thirty-five years ago when I learned that family afflictions, like weather, come at you from beyond.” // continue reading

  • Lithium and the Absence of Desire  

    Lithium and the Absence of Desire  

    by Virginia Chase Sutton. “It is not advertised on the pill bottle, merely mentioned / in the product description from the drug store. / You have no idea what you are giving away.” // continue reading

  • Images

    Images

    by Sofia M. Starnes. “If I forget you, / will you disappear? / The arc of Rilke’s question seemed to spawn/ out of a dustbin, / remnant of a / sheer belief that minds are gods.” // continue reading

  • Above the Angels

    Above the Angels

    by Philip Levine. “A row of corrugated gray huts / hunkering down in the November rain. / Across the way the fire burns night and day / though unseen now in first light.” // continue reading

As featured on PBS News Hour’s CANVAS Series

Watch PBS News Hour’s Jeffrey Brown report on BLR’s 25th Anniversary, featuring BLR Editor Danielle Ofri and past BLR writers reflecting on why poetry, storytelling, and writing matter, especially in moments of illness.

Whiting Award Winner

BLR was awarded a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize for “excellence in publishing, advocacy for writers, and a unique contribution to the strength of the overall literary community.”

Praise & Recognition