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

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— Everything BLR

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

— A new set of great reads with each click —

  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • SUTHY Syndrome

    SUTHY Syndrome

    by Hollis Seamon. “I shit you not. Right in front of the elevator that spits you into our hospice, there is—get ready for this—a harpist. I mean, isn’t that like a teensy bit premature?” // continue reading

  • To The River

    To The River

    by Kelly Flanigan. “I walk into Scott’s kitchen, sweaty from basketball and needing something cold to drink, and there’s his mom in just her underwear…” // continue reading

  • Geese

    Geese

    by Grace Glass. “Mornings, Adam struggles up from his dreams to a blinding, ochre-tinged pain that sizzles up his damaged spine, seizes his neck, etches spiteful hieroglyphics into the base of his skull. He can’t help groaning but he does… // continue reading

  • A Love Story All the Same

    A Love Story All the Same

    by Claire A. Berman. “…I understood that he’d been expressing his own insecurities, not mine. I entered new relationships full of trepidation. Symptoms and appearance were inextricably bound together in my mind, necessitating constant body vigilance to control them.” // continue reading

  • Snapshots of Bellevue

    Snapshots of Bellevue

    by Karen Lamberton. “The ‘General Slocum,’ was the biggest and fastest harbor day-liner. That day, about 2,000 passengers, embarked for an annual Sunday School excursion.” // continue reading

  • Dark Valley

    Dark Valley

    by Zoë Sprankle. “I’m too young now to know how soon imaginary play will decay and mature into rumors and cliques and senior boys with beards who look at me like I’m simultaneously a toddler and a toy.” // 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