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
  • Avtomat Kalashnikova

    Avtomat Kalashnikova

    by Rachel Hall. “Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov wakes in gray light to the sounds of the injured soldiers in the cots beside him moaning, crying out.” // continue reading

  • Girls, at Play

    Girls, at Play

    by Celeste Ng. “This is how we play the game: pink means kissing; red means tongue.” // continue reading

  • Shaking the Dead Geranium 

    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

  • Canine Cardiology

    Canine Cardiology

    by Deborah Thompson. “Houdi pawed at the student’s thighs and, despite his heart condition, displayed one of his inopportune erections, which the vet student chose not to acknowledge.” // continue reading

  • You Know What She Means

    You Know What She Means

    by Elizabeth Schultz. “And here is another thing you do not remember: your parents telling you that you have polio, and that they are taking you to St. Margaret’s Hospital in Northridge.” // continue reading

  • 71 Grams

    71 Grams

    by Nicki Porter. “At home, you unload each item with a quiet smile and feel a pinching like a tiny crab below your belly. You imagine a poppy seed nestling in, burrowing, seeking shelter within you, preparing to stay.” // continue reading

  • Lou Gehrig’s Army

    Lou Gehrig’s Army

    by Catherine G. Wolf. “Some of us limped, and some drove motorized wheelchairs / in the graveyard, and those who had still had voices sang…” // 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

  • Hinges

    Hinges

    by Melissa Stein. “You opened this door. Forced it back /  on its hinges, drove in the thin wedge, saying / ‘I may need to enter at a moment’s notice…'” // 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