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— Everything BLR —
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BLR 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. // continue reading
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BLR 25th anniversary ~~ Issue 18 highlights
The stories that stay with us, plus much more as we continue to share issue highlights throughout our 25th anniversary year. // continue reading
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BLR Book Club | “Fire Exit” Week 5
Every week, we will be discussing a section of FIRE EXIT, the first pick of BLR’s Book Club. This week, history, illness, and identity weave their way through the story. // continue reading
— See what’s new with us at BLR —
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BLR Spring Reading with Authors from Issue 50
Join us on May 28 to celebrate the launch of Issue 50. We’ll hear from the issue’s authors live as they share their stories, essays, and poems. // continue reading
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Announcing the BLR Book Club pick
We’re excited to announce our first pick for the BLR Book Club: Fire Exit, a novel by Morgan Talty. Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME, The New Yorker, ELLE, NPR, and Harper’s… // continue reading
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Announcing the 2027 BLR Literary Prizes Judges
Meet our 2027 BLR Literary Prize judges: Natalie Diaz, Daniel Mason, and Meghan O’Rourke. Submit poetry, fiction and nonfiction from March 1 to July 1, 2026. // continue reading
— Come join us, online, or in person —
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BLR Spring Reading with Authors from Issue 50
Join us on May 28 to celebrate the launch of Issue 50. We’ll hear from the issue’s authors live as they share their stories, essays, and poems. // continue reading
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Writing the Body: Conversations on Creative Writing in Healthcare
Writing the Body, part of BLR’s Conversations on Creative Writing in Healthcare series, brings together four best-selling authors whose work confronts illness as it is lived in the body. // continue reading
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BLR & Writers Read Present Body Language: True Stories of Illness, Recovery, and Discovery
City Winery, Writers Read & Bellevue Literary Review present Body Language: True Stories of Illness, Recovery, and Discovery live on April 12 at 1:00 PM. // continue reading
— Read interviews with BLR authors, editors, readers, and more —
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Interview: Lara Palmqvist
“The very idea that no story is final—be it the story of one’s own self, or the story of a nation—is ultimately something in which I find great hope.” // continue reading
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Interview: Sabah Parsa
“Humor is the easiest for me to write in any piece, fiction or nonfiction.” // continue reading
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Interview: Jack Coulehan
“Clinical care provides the subject matter for many of my poems, and some of the themes I explore in them…have driven a process of self-discovery that I think has made me a better doctor.” // continue reading
— A new set of great reads with each click —
- fiction
- nonfiction
- poetry
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Hallandale Beach, 1987
It is not a miracle of faith, but a miracle of perseverance that delivers them both to high ground, the boy wincing under her bruising grip, protesting, I was joking, I could stand all the time, and the Bubbe, her… // continue reading
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Sloth, That Wicked Siren
Why he stopped showering, no one could say for sure, though everyone had their guesses. // continue reading
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The Crazy One
But here I am, and here you are, and once you’ve heard the whole story, it’s your job to decide: Am I the crazy one, or is it all of you? // continue reading
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Askew
It gets hold of me, I wrote less than a year after her death. Somehow it creeps up. // continue reading
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Snapshots of Bellevue
When sick New Yorkers failed to find a place in private institutions like New York Hospital, they turned to public hospitals like Bellevue. // continue reading
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Harvest Moon
He’d looked perfect – nothing deformed or discolored, no hair out of place, both shoelaces tied. The life had been shaken out of him. // continue reading
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The Oncologist
Do you have an appetite? No. / Are you anxious? Yes. / Irritable? Yes. // continue reading
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Papa (Bi-Polar) Bear
You didn’t come to bed until morning/ You opened and closed doors all night/ while I slept in the ambient soot // continue reading
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Elegy with a Horse in a Field
by Subhaga Crystal Bacon. “What can I tell you of this cool morning, / mid-August, the sky clear, sun on the bare / pine floor, a book of poems, dog asleep, / the house quiet…” // 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
``With every issue, Bellevue Literary Review probes our understanding of the human body and mind in new ways. It is essential reading for anyone who deals with sickness and health, anyone interested in narrative medicine, anyone who simply needs a dose of deep grace and humanity.”
“The editors have produced a journal of uncommon literary quality.”
“I subscribe and receive literally hundreds of magazines every year. Of all those magazines, none stands out more than Bellevue Literary Review.”
“These two non-fiction pieces in BLR are powerful, honest, and heartrending. They lifted me up because of the truths released onto the pages. Both deal with problems our family is suffering through, so on a personal level, the authors are helping me grapple.”
“BLR's contents are at once practically instructive, and yet intangibly inspiring and utterly gripping. I can’t imagine my work as a writer, or a doctor, without it.”
“After reading it cover to cover, I came away walloped by the breadth and depth of the pain it highlights.”
“No human thing is more universal than illness, in all its permutations, and no literary publication holds more credibility on the subject than Bellevue Literary Review.”
“A kaleidoscope of creativity. . . The selections are unsentimental and often unpredictable.”
“What is most impressive about BLR, though, is how the editors can stretch their own boundaries.”
“Ask any healthcare worker, ask any patient who has come back from illness and fear, and you will hear stories that might change your life. That's what BLR offers.”
“BLR is loyal to its theme but never constrained by it, uncovering boundless tonal and narrative possibilities as it contemplates the body as a physical entity, probes the manifestation of mental illness, or reckons with how the racialized and gendered body is perceived.”
“BLR is open to many modes and styles of work; it has no house style except humanity (though excellent editing doesn't hurt either).”






















