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

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— Everything BLR

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

— A new set of great reads with each click —

  • fiction
  • nonfiction
  • poetry
  • Mushroom Death Suit

    Mushroom Death Suit

    by Tyriek White. “She shrunk away; a cold, spring evening. Like the harsh, white light to a newborn. Too many knives and machines and opening and closing. Stitching and restitching. Blood in and blood out.” // continue reading

  • Thinking in Clichés

    Thinking in Clichés

    by Denitza Blagev. “After all the pain and blood, you almost begin to think of death as the next therapy, because that’s what it is, you realize. Death is part of the process.” // continue reading

  • Cousin Esther Goes to Chicago 

    Cousin Esther Goes to Chicago 

    by Cori Baill. “All that time I’ve been working here, mopping the floors, emptying the trash, washing down rooms, and watching the wet-behind-the-ears young pup doctors learn their business.” // continue reading

  • Forty-One Months

    Forty-One Months

    by William McGrath. “Thato is a small sad boy who has come to stay at the safe home in Lesotho, up in the cloudvoid in the eastern mountains of Mokhotlong district. His mother is dead and his father is off… // continue reading

  • Dust, Light, Life

    Dust, Light, Life

    by Jacqueline Kolosov. “‘Why are there so many moths near the lamp, Mama?’ my five-year-old daughter Sophie asked, as we sat at our patio table a few weeks ago, the purple-rose of twilight of late April having by now given… // continue reading

  • Harvest Moon

    Harvest Moon

    by Julia Michie Bruckner. “He’d looked perfect – nothing deformed or discolored, no hair out of place, both shoelaces tied. The life had been shaken out of him.” // continue reading

  • Baptism

    Baptism

    by Michele Bombardier. “I pull up a chair, lower the bedrails. / He bats at my hand. When he finds it, he quiets, / his hand a vice on mine.” // continue reading

  • Power and Light

    Power and Light

    by Paula Sergi. “She’d toss a quilt made from our outgrown skirts / over the faded couch and lie there, / holding the ache, rocking it to sleep…” // continue reading

  • The Rice-Eating Ceremony

    The Rice-Eating Ceremony

    by Sonia Sarkar. “Nine months into my life, I am asked to eat on command / These tiny bursts of cylindrical snow that will reappear / Again and again…” // 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