A journal of humanity and human experience
Coming up in May
Join us for “Winning Words: A Reading with the 2022 BLR Prize Winners”
As featured on NPR's Morning Edition
NPR’s Neda Ulaby reported on BLR‘s 20th Anniversary, featuring BLR Editor Danielle Ofri, along with author Celeste Ng. Long before Celeste Ng reached stratospheric popularity with Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere, she was a an emerging author, whose story “Girls, at Play” appeared in BLR and then won a Pushcart Prize.
BLR Off the Page
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We’re not saying our boys are angels, … we’re just saying that we the mothers didn’t need to teach our boys not to rape.
A society that ignores the basic health care needs of its children “reflects a moral failure to value and respect the aspirations of children.”
I knew years ago that the paternal gene was missing. I should not, would not, be relied on by other humans, especially small, defenseless ones
To see how the snow blanketed the trees / along Taughannock Creek Road, I turned off / Route 96 this morning.
Television had always been a perfect distraction from our family’s drama and trauma, soothing us more than our Baptist faith.
Would that our breasts were like oysters/
Briny, lustrous. Maybe not filter feeders,
Aunt #1’s plastic toilet lid shifts under Manolo’s weight as he balances his left ankle on his right knee, careful so his leg doesn’t slide off his sweatpants.
after the pink peonies die, their heads droop,/ petals begin their falling,
“Well, here’s the good Dr. Kaspar stuck out in a field in the middle of nowhere,” LeeAnn said.
Praise & Recognition
“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).”