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

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— A new set of great reads with each click —

  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • This Be Madness

    This Be Madness

    by Carter Sickels. “We were out of heroin and broke. Didn’t have pills. Nothing to drink or huff. “I’ve got a plan,’ I said.” // continue reading

  • Reflexes

    Reflexes

    by Adriana Golden. “…what started as an alibi could be a salvation. Yesterday, I flushed the rest of the pills down the toilet, all at once. They flocked out of sight like a swarm of tiny pink beetles.” // continue reading

  • Ghon Focus

    Ghon Focus

    by Jonathan Strysko. “He had the urge to immediately order a CT scan, but the patient being his daughter, he didn’t have the luxury of calling the shots. His mind instead wandered to the more obvious epidemiologic questions: How? When?” // continue reading

  • Illness as Muse

    Illness as Muse

    by Rafael Campo. “It is not unusual, after I’ve given a poetry reading, for some impossibly young writer from the audience to remark over the post-literary pretzels and Diet Coke, “Wow, your stuff is really depressing.’’ // continue reading

  • Exene

    Exene

    by Kate Broad. “My family must have read some theory, or made it up themselves, that having a pet could help lower suicide risk. An animal was something to believe in, to hold close—a reason to get up each day.” // continue reading

  • In Between Time

    In Between Time

    by Eric Jones. “Pain made me a precocious student of time, each middle ear infection a new lesson on the uncatchable instant.” // 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