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
  • Atrophy

    Atrophy

    by Lauren Erin O’Brien. “Yarrow doesn’t say much aside from being strange but that’s less him and more his parents, if he even has those. He doesn’t seem like the type to come from a womb.” // continue reading

  • Seeing Things

    Seeing Things

    by Deena Linett. “I called him Lark although his given name is Laurie. I made it up, a love-name, so I reckon when they asked him for a name he said what came to mind, quick-like, and told them Lark.” // continue reading

  • A Vehicular Situation

    A Vehicular Situation

    by Maija Stromberg. “’Well, here’s the good Dr. Kaspar stuck out in a field in the middle of nowhere,’ LeeAnn said.” // continue reading

  • No One Thing

    No One Thing

    by Laura LeMoon. “The things I’ve had to do to survive were part of the price I paid to be seen…Freedom in one moment became bondage in the next. Chains exploded into power. No one thing is any one thing.” // continue reading

  • Askew

    Askew

    by Esther K. Willison. “It gets hold of me, I wrote less than a year after her death. Somehow  it creeps up.” // continue reading

  • IN THE MARGIN

    IN THE MARGIN

    by Ha Jin. “For many years I refused to be an exile, claiming that I am an immigrant, someone who chose to move to a new country voluntarily.” // continue reading

  • Mrs. Eder’s Sunday School Class

    Mrs. Eder’s Sunday School Class

    by Brenna Working Lemieux. “Never mind that her fingers bow backwards, / they’re so lithe, that the bones below her skin / spoke like umbrella ribs, that the bible’s onion-skin / pages arch at her touch…” // continue reading

  • Learning New Words

    Learning New Words

    by Hal Sirowitz. “one of the benefits of the disease –/ you learn new words. You / also learn new meanings for / old words.” // continue reading

  • The Cradles of St. Kilda

    The Cradles of St. Kilda

    by Catharine Clark-Sayles. “From 1850 to 1890 forty-one of fifty-six infants born on St. Kilda in the Hebrides died of tetanus caused by the custom of anointing the umbilical stump with oil stored in the dried stomach of a goose.” // 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