all
news
events
interviews
featured reads
— Everything BLR —
-

BLR BookTalk with Author Morgan Talty
Join us on June 11 for a live conversation as we dive into Morgan’s book Fire Exit, which was the inaugural selection for BLR’s new Book Club. // continue reading
-

BLR 25th anniversary ~~ Issue 20 highlights
A special dedication, plus much more as we continue to share issue highlights throughout our 25th anniversary year. // continue reading
-

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 BLR writers reflecting on why poetry, storytelling, and writing matter, especially in moments of illness. // continue reading
— See what’s new with us at BLR —
-

BLR BookTalk with Author Morgan Talty
Join us on June 11 for a live conversation as we dive into Morgan’s book Fire Exit, which was the inaugural selection for BLR’s new Book Club. // continue reading
-

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
-

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
— Come join us, online, or in person —
-

BLR BookTalk with Author Morgan Talty
Join us on June 11 for a live conversation as we dive into Morgan’s book Fire Exit, which was the inaugural selection for BLR’s new Book Club. // continue reading
-

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
-

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

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
-

Interview: Sabah Parsa
“Humor is the easiest for me to write in any piece, fiction or nonfiction.” // continue reading
-

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
-

Shaking the Dead Geranium
by Harriet Rzetelny. “By age sixteen, he’d won a full scholarship to Emory College. By eighteen, he was convinced that my mother was sucking the life fluids out of his brain and went after her with a bread knife.” // continue reading
-

Numbers
by Marcia Calhoun Forecki. “Even numbers are smooth and sweet, and can all be divided by two, which is the most perfect number of all because two means love: husband and wife, mother and child, man and dog. That should… // continue reading
-

The Tribulations of Uncle Ned
by Stephanie Wrobel. “I knew years ago that the paternal gene was missing. I should not, would not, be relied on by other humans, especially small, defenseless ones.” // continue reading
-

Of Mothers and Monkeys
by Caitlin Kuehn. “My medical knowledge is limited to what I have learned here at the lab. All of it applicable only to non-human mammals.” // continue reading
-

Call/Waiting
by Alexa Rose Steinberg. “Throughout the evening, I hear explanations of why people can’t talk when I call…” // continue reading
-

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
-

Rubies of Babylon
by Tim Suermondt. “I lie back a little dreamlike, / let Mary Immaculate take the blood she needs. / The sun has found its way inside, / enveloping all of us in its light—” // continue reading
-

My Mother is a Fish
by Kailey Tedesco. “My mother’s old kimono cradles me / so that I can become a fish, wet with / water I can drape about my shoulders.” // continue reading
-

Valentine
by Chelsea Krieg. “For minutes,/ I watch his heart: ventricles contracting, / blood pumping – my other silent pulsing center.” // 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).”



















