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— Everything BLR —
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Creativity in Medicine: Navigating Uncertainty through Art and Literature
Explore how poetry, stories, and visual art can help us make sense of medicine’s complexities in this new online class. // continue reading
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BLR 25th anniversary ~~ Issue 22 highlights
A short history of nursing, plus much more as we continue to share issue highlights throughout our 25th anniversary year. // continue reading
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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 —
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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
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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
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Announcing the 2027 BLR Literary Prizes Judges
Meet our 2027 BLR Literary Prize judges: Natalie Diaz, Daniel Mason, and Meghan O’Rourke. Submit poetry, fiction and nonfiction from March 1 to July 1, 2026. // continue reading
— Come join us, online, or in person —
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Creativity in Medicine: Navigating Uncertainty through Art and Literature
Explore how poetry, stories, and visual art can help us make sense of medicine’s complexities in this new online class. // continue reading
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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
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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
— Read interviews with BLR authors, editors, readers, and more —
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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
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Interview: Sabah Parsa
“Humor is the easiest for me to write in any piece, fiction or nonfiction.” // continue reading
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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
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Mud
by Ben Orlando. “I saw the man before he died, under the front tire of my father’s truck. He was pinned and the truck stalled and then settled in the mud and three grown men were not enough to push… // continue reading
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Eruv
by David Milofsky. “Dotty Adams remarked that she hadn’t known there were any Jews in the neighborhood. Some people wondered if the men in long black coats and broad-brimmed hats were Goths, like those boys at Columbine.” // 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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Breaking Point
by Eileen Cronin. “Our heads are filled with the native rhythm of an aerobic beat and hot anticipation.” // continue reading
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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
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On Not Seeing Whales
by Nikki Schulak. “My mother wanted to see a whale before she died. In a boat off Montauk, Long Island, we puked over the side railings for the entire four-hour tour. No whales.” // continue reading
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Because You Are Dead You Think You Can Have Anything You Want
by Dannye Romine Powell. “You come back, / bent over my things / like a collector, hunched, / touching, wanting to lay claim / to everything.” // continue reading
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Letter to a Dead Mother
by Martha Silano. “Thinking of you as I pick up flecks of oats from the kitchen floor, / put them back in the container. You know, the five-second rule.” // continue reading
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Chaas Curry
by E. Hume Covey. “Two months into her illness, Pat / lay in pain, nearly immobile, / nourished by pills and liquids, / no appetite even for favorite foods…” // 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).”





















