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

  • Issue 51
  • Issue 50
  • Issue 49

  • all
  • news
  • events
  • interviews

— Everything BLR —

— See what’s new with us at BLR —

— Come join us, online, or in person —

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

— A new set of great reads with each click —

  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • Sloth, That Wicked Siren

    Sloth, That Wicked Siren

    by Christopher Notarnicola. “Why he stopped showering, no one could say for sure, though everyone had their guesses.” // continue reading

  • Commotio Cordis

    Commotio Cordis

    by Pria Anand. “Lydia dreamt, too. She dreamt of Carnivale, of the motorcade, motorcycles without mufflers and pickup trucks hung with paper cutouts circling the island.” // continue reading

  • Vultur Gryphus

    Vultur Gryphus

    by Daniel Seifert. “Luis unscrews a small bottle of puro and daubs Tio’s smiling mouth. In the still air, the pure alcohol makes Luis’s eyes water. Further down, he hears the deep-throated cough of a detonation. He heads toward it.” // continue reading

  • Family Portrait, Guam, 1979

    Family Portrait, Guam, 1979

    by Katherine Lien Chariott. “I know who you are. You are the girl of twenty, in that black and white photograph I held onto for years, that girl so beautiful she filled me with shame, just as she filled me… // continue reading

  • A Nigerian Attempts Therapy

    A Nigerian Attempts Therapy

    by Ucheoma Onwutuebe. “I am a Nigerian woman, plagued by Nigerian womanly problems. When I moved to America for graduate school last summer, I believed this new country would shield me from those nagging afflictions.” // continue reading

  • In Between Time

    In Between Time

    by Eric Jones. “Pain made me a precocious student of time, each middle ear infection a new lesson on the uncatchable instant.” // continue reading

  • The White Hospital

    The White Hospital

    by Jan Steckel. “They took two buses to get there. / Rosalia wouldn’t speak, just cradled the little suit / until Ruben gently took it away from her.” // continue reading

  • Telephone

    Telephone

    by Judy Katz. “These days I think of you / on the yellow chaise / with your Parkinson’s / and hatred of telephones, / and make myself call.” // continue reading

  • Our Cat at the Winter Solstice

    Our Cat at the Winter Solstice

    by Joan I. Siegel. “He does not wait for the sun’s return. Instead he makes a pillow of darkness to stretch inside this longest night…” // 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