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
  • Recoil 

    Recoil 

    by Trenton Streeting. “After my father’s disk sander had whirred to halt, he turned to me and gestured majestically. ‘Matthew, the work is always the best pay.'” // continue reading

  • Periscope

    Periscope

    by Anne Elliott. “Caroline listened to the bellows under her bed, drawing and blowing air. The room asserted itself, always, its rhythmic hiss and pop of machinery, the anti-lullaby of metal cocoons, rows of them, each containing a complicated person.” // continue reading

  • Afternoon Heat

    Afternoon Heat

    by Vishwas R. Gaitonde. “Summer sapped the energy out of us all, the patients in the waiting room under a whirring fan and I in my consulting room.” // continue reading

  • Radon Gas and the Believers

    Radon Gas and the Believers

    by Andrew C. Gottlieb. “But its impossible to go very far without seeing a sudden dark opening, the sloping, rotting framing of an abandoned mine entrance, or the colorful, dangerous scree sloping downhill: the remnant tailings from the ore processing… // continue reading

  • Mending Petals

    Mending Petals

    by Mary Arguelles. “I don’t even know why I want a tattoo. Maybe to commemorate the missing breast. Maybe to re-define beauty. Maybe just to cover the scar. All I know is something about the space screams canvas.” // continue reading

  • Snapshots of Bellevue

    Snapshots of Bellevue

    by Sandra Opdycke. “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

  • Drought Pastoral

    Drought Pastoral

    by Michael M. Weinstein. “I wanted you, desert / you red incorruptible // parchedness perched on / the earth’s bone shoulder…” // continue reading

  • Duende

    Duende

    by Elizabeth J. Coleman. “If I were a musical instrument, I’d be / a guitar, or violin, one that cries out, / the way the clarinet belted out / Smile When Your Heart is Breaking…” // continue reading

  • Epileptic

    Epileptic

    by Mary Morris. “Within the body—/ a ghost // Ground unfastened / Contradicted space…” // 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