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

  • Issue 50
  • Issue 49
  • Issue 48

  • all
  • news
  • events
  • interviews

— Everything BLR

— See what’s new with us at BLR

— Come join us, online, or in person —

— Read interviews with BLR authors, editors, readers, and more —

— A new set of great reads with each click —

  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • The Third Story

    The Third Story

    by Rebecca Wurtz. “Paul once thought that the talent and ambition that had propelled him into graduate school as the first Negro PhD in pharmacology would keep propelling him, perhaps into a chairmanship at a prestigious Negro university. But life… // continue reading

  • In Praise of Silence

    In Praise of Silence

    by Moshe Zvi Marvit. “Lillian tried to forget through silence, and though she could hide the facts from herself, she didn’t know how to keep the fears away.” // continue reading

  • High Water Mark

    High Water Mark

    by Suzanne McConnell. “I regard myself in the mirror he holds up. It is spring, but damp here in Venice. The necklace lies on my blue sweater like fire.” // continue reading

  • The Next Bullet

    The Next Bullet

    by Jeremy Griffin. “Despite my respect for my students, I was afraid of them. Afraid of the  way they watched me as I delivered a lecture, afraid of whispers, silences.” // continue reading

  • Untitled post 19281

    by Pamela Schmid. “In the summer of ’76, my little sister and I were shipped off to Camp Rim Rock, set beside the leech-infested Capacon River in the woods of West Virginia.” // 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

  • The Cradles of St. Kilda

    The Cradles of St. Kilda

    by Catharine Clark-Sayles. “From 1850 to 1890 forty-one of fifty-six infants born on St. Kilda in the Hebrides died of tetanus caused by the custom of anointing the umbilical stump with oil stored in the dried stomach of a goose.” // continue reading

  • Relic

    Relic

    by Stacy Nigliazzo. “Quietly, they concede, / leaving pennies / at your feet.” // continue reading

  • Jellyfish and Grit

    Jellyfish and Grit

    by Maya Klauber. “I awake in a hospital bed to what could / only be a thousand tiny jellyfish infusing / my veins. Typical. I came here to be healed, / and now I’ve got a jellyfish problem.” // 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