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— Everything BLR —
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BLR 25th anniversary ~~ Issue 43 highlights
A meditation on recovery, plus much more as we continue to share issue highlights throughout our 25th anniversary year. // continue reading
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Applications are open for the new BLR Editorial Fellowship
BLR’s new Editorial Fellowship is a year-long mentorship program designed to introduce writers to editorial pathways and support literary engagement and citizenship. // continue reading
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The One-Breath Poem: A BLR Haiku Workshop
In this special BLR workshop, explore haiku as a practice of presence and attention. // continue reading
— See what’s new with us at BLR —
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Applications are open for the new BLR Editorial Fellowship
BLR’s new Editorial Fellowship is a year-long mentorship program designed to introduce writers to editorial pathways and support literary engagement and citizenship. // continue reading
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Call for Submissions: Theme Issue on Migrations
From September 1 to December 31, 2026, we are accepting submissions for a special theme issue on Migrations. // continue reading
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Coming soon! BLR’s 25th anniversary issue
Along with a stellar mix of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, the anniversary issue of BLR includes special features including an art insert and roundtable about writing and healing. // continue reading
— Come join us, online, or in person —
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The One-Breath Poem: A BLR Haiku Workshop
In this special BLR workshop, explore haiku as a practice of presence and attention. // continue reading
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BLR 25th Anniversary Celebration
Celebrate BLR’s 25th Anniversary with us on November 12 at The Century Club in New York City! // continue reading
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Bellevue Literary Review: 2026 Fall Reading
Join us on October 22 to celebrate the launch of BLR’s special 25th anniversary issue; hear from the issue’s contributors live as they read from their work. // continue reading
— Read interviews with BLR authors, editors, readers, and more —
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Illness As Muse: A Roundtable on Writing and Healing
“On the occasion of BLR’s 25th anniversary, we asked several notable writers to reflect on how writing has intersected with their experience of illness, grief, or healing.” // continue reading
— A new set of great reads with each click —
- fiction
- nonfiction
- poetry
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Revolutions in Time
by Elizabeth Lee. “…she is still young and doesn’t know postpartum depression, sleepless nights shredded by my wails, white suburban mothers’ pursed red lips as she picks me up from school in her laundromat clothes.” // continue reading
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Old Poles
by Tim Erwin. “He had a face that belonged in a Soviet bread line, waxen and expressionless, with skin tags and papules sprouting up from beneath the rough surface.” // continue reading
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Halfway to the Afterlife
by Parker Desautell. “I had come into the hospital as I came into the world—twitching, foaming, groaning. I was almost brain-dead, they said, yet here I was, good as reborn.” // continue reading
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Quarantine
by Matthew Davis. “I knew plague existed in Mongolia, but I had always thought it stayed in smaller towns further west.” // continue reading
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Two Thoracotomies
by Angela Tang-Tan. “The first time I witness a thorax opened, it is on a twenty-five-gram mouse. Heavier than most because she is gravid. The second time, it’s on a thirty-year-old man.” // continue reading
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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
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Baptism
by Michele Bombardier. “I pull up a chair, lower the bedrails. / He bats at my hand. When he finds it, he quiets, / his hand a vice on mine.” // continue reading
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Distribution
by Jenny Qi. “Scatter my ashes in the ocean, / my father instructed…” // continue reading
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Usury
by Doug Fritock. “When we read The Merchant of Venice / in tenth grade English, just a bunch / of disinterested fifteen-year-olds / restless at our desks while Ms. Townley / expounded on the evils of usury…” // 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).”

















