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Applications are open for the new BLR Editorial Fellowship
BLR’s new Editorial Fellowship is a year-long mentorship program designed to introduce writers to editorial pathways and support literary engagement and citizenship. // continue reading
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BLR 25th anniversary ~~ Issue 39 highlights
BLR’s first independently published issue, plus much more as we continue to share issue highlights throughout our 25th anniversary year. // continue reading
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Call for Submissions: Theme Issue on Migrations
From September 1 to December 31, 2026, we are accepting submissions for a special theme issue on Migrations. // continue reading
— See what’s new with us at BLR —
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Applications are open for the new BLR Editorial Fellowship
BLR’s new Editorial Fellowship is a year-long mentorship program designed to introduce writers to editorial pathways and support literary engagement and citizenship. // continue reading
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Call for Submissions: Theme Issue on Migrations
From September 1 to December 31, 2026, we are accepting submissions for a special theme issue on Migrations. // continue reading
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Coming soon! BLR’s 25th anniversary issue
Along with a stellar mix of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, the anniversary issue of BLR includes special features including an art insert and roundtable about writing and healing. // continue reading
— Come join us, online, or in person —
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Bellevue Literary Review: 2026 Fall Reading
Join us on October 22 to celebrate the launch of BLR’s special 25th anniversary issue; hear from the issue’s contributors live as they read from their work. // continue reading
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Creativity in Medicine: Navigating Uncertainty through Art and Literature
Explore how poetry, stories, and visual art can help us make sense of medicine’s complexities in this new online workshop. // continue reading
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Art and Medicine: Supporting Compassion Through Creativity
Enjoy cocktails, conversation, and community, while supporting BLR’s Art in Medicine program. // continue reading
— Read interviews with BLR authors, editors, readers, and more —
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Interview: Laura E. Garrard
“I found capturing moments through poetry, rather than summarizing the entire cancer experience, to be therapeutic rather than draining.” // continue reading
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Interview: Lara Palmqvist
“The very idea that no story is final—be it the story of one’s own self, or the story of a nation—is ultimately something in which I find great hope.” // continue reading
— A new set of great reads with each click —
- fiction
- nonfiction
- poetry
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Failed Treaties
by Sahar Mustafah. “Danny used to open the door and let me into his apartment downstairs at seven a.m. every Saturday. My mother would already be up, stooped over the kitchen table in our upstairs apartment, wearing her pale-blue nightdress, spreading tangy lebanah… // continue reading
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Mud
by Ben Orlando. “I saw the man before he died, under the front tire of my father’s truck. He was pinned and the truck stalled and then settled in the mud and three grown men were not enough to push… // continue reading
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Eruv
by David Milofsky. “Dotty Adams remarked that she hadn’t known there were any Jews in the neighborhood. Some people wondered if the men in long black coats and broad-brimmed hats were Goths, like those boys at Columbine.” // continue reading
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You Imagine Death
by Justine Payton. “Just five months ago, you hiked to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, whitewater rafted down the Nile, climbed volcanoes in Rwanda. Now, from the neck down, your body is unresponsive.” // continue reading
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Distance
by Mallika Sekhar. “The ward doctor rang me late in the night to say that the Judge had been admitted with COVID-19 and was not doing well. He wasn’t deemed fit for ICU because of his age and his prior… // continue reading
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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
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Sonnet for Lidwina, Patron Saint of MS
by Alene Terzian-Zeitounian. “If I had a time machine, I would tell / you the suffering isn’t worth the fame” // continue reading
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Weaning: First Day of School
by Wendy Wisner. “is out the window, along with a tinge / of yellow on the oak trees. Last night I dreamt / I took my college job back—typing, data entry—” // continue reading
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The Practice of Cleaning
by Sarah Nance. “My mother knows there are three / ways to be clean: to take a mess / that’s there and cover it…” // 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
``With every issue, Bellevue Literary Review probes our understanding of the human body and mind in new ways. It is essential reading for anyone who deals with sickness and health, anyone interested in narrative medicine, anyone who simply needs a dose of deep grace and humanity.”
“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).”




















