25 years of creative writing on health, illness, and healing

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  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • 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

  • 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

  • Anticipatory Grief

    Anticipatory Grief

    by Misty Kiwak Jacobs. “After Father Marcel died, he came to me in a dream and said, “I liked you very much.” Not the Great Commandment that he kept, his job description. Gloriously less…Those words his imprimatur on my grief.” // continue reading

  • Getting Over a Cold

    Getting Over a Cold

    by Margaret Kogan. “First open the windows and empty the garbage. / Next start the laundry, lights and darks. / Strip the bed, wash sheets, pillowcases, / mattress and quilt covers, mats and towels.” // continue reading

  • Day 1,301

    Day 1,301

    by Judith Harris. “There will be a worse day. He will live / long enough to not recognize me at all, / and I sense it drawing nearer…” // 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

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