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
  • Revolutions in Time

    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

  • Old Poles

    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

  • Halfway to the Afterlife

    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

  • Quarantine  

    Quarantine  

    by Matthew Davis. “I knew plague existed in Mongolia, but I had always thought it stayed in smaller towns further west.” // continue reading

  • Two Thoracotomies 

    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

  • Dark Valley

    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

  • Baptism

    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

  • Distribution

    Distribution

    by Jenny Qi. “Scatter my ashes in the ocean, / my father instructed…” // continue reading

  • Usury

    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