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

  • Issue 51
  • Issue 50
  • Issue 49

  • all
  • news
  • events
  • interviews

— Everything BLR —

— See what’s new with us at BLR —

— Come join us, online, or in person —

— Read interviews with BLR authors, editors, readers, and more —

— A new set of great reads with each click —

  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • The Great Imitator

    The Great Imitator

    by Leslie Patterson. “I am a disease. My very existence poisons my father’s life.” // continue reading

  • The Levitron

    The Levitron

    by Robert Oldshue. “Let me tell you one thing: these know-it-alls who come around hawking computerized this and that to make Shady Rest work like the Holiday Inn have never worked in a nursing home.” // continue reading

  • Untitled post 19287

    by Ellen Collins. “We have forgotten how to tie our shoes, how to button our sweaters, how to hold a fork. We have lost the ability to add a column of numbers, to trace a route on a map, to… // continue reading

  • Untitled post 19551

    by Joan Kip. “It’s now eighteen months since Art died, and while he continues to inhabit the depths of my house, that place where our souls meet, the upper stories still feel his absence.” // continue reading

  • The Tag

    The Tag

    by Elizabeth Crowell. “Dr. H’s earnestness was more apparent the second time we met with him, when we weren’t hearing the bad news for the first time. In a full-lit room not dimmed for ultrasounds, he was a handsome, dark-haired… // continue reading

  • Untitled post 20159

    by Amy V. Blakemore. “My father drove me to the appointment where we would determine what to do with the tapeworm in my stomach, the one that, in all likelihood, was not real.” // 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