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

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— Everything BLR

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  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • Battenkill

    Battenkill

    People need the company of other people. It’s how people are made. They can’t help it. This need can be degrading to a person’s soul, if souls are real. // continue reading

  • Mushroom Death Suit

    Mushroom Death Suit

    by Tyriek White. “She shrunk away; a cold, spring evening. Like the harsh, white light to a newborn. Too many knives and machines and opening and closing. Stitching and restitching. Blood in and blood out.” // continue reading

  • The Mona Lisa

    The Mona Lisa

    by  Robert Oldshue. “Now it might seem that a nursing home with only two floors and forty – seven residents would be a hard place to lose somebody.” // continue reading

  • Bloodlines

    Bloodlines

    by Anne Rudig. “The blood I wished was mine almost killed Mindy. I began to wonder whether it wasn’t such a bad thing we weren’t related, but the thought felt so disloyal I dismissed it as soon as I could.” // continue reading

  • Motherhood Requiem

    Motherhood Requiem

    by Nadia Ghent. “One afternoon, after my mother had fallen ill for the fourth or fifth time, I pulled out all my eyelashes, one by one. I was thirteen. She had gone to the hospital in the middle of the… // 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

  • My Friend in Flapping Stages Tries to Take Flight

    My Friend in Flapping Stages Tries to Take Flight

    by Rochelle Robinson-Dukes. “April is my favorite month. / Its stormy flowers / and puddled rainbows are captivating / as is the lightning / that breaks cool spring nights / like a child’s scribble.” // continue reading

  • Ahihi Bay

    Ahihi Bay

    by Floyd Skloot. “So far this morning has been cool and gray but as she walks backward into the sea, adjusting her snorkel and mask, sunlight appears over Haleakala’s cone…” // continue reading

  • Yellowthroat

    Yellowthroat

    by Eileen Elizabeth Waggoner. “Some of y’all pray to God / I pray to the yellow warblers / and their frail whistling / on wildfire winds…” // 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