all
news
events
interviews
featured reads
— Everything BLR —
-

BLR 25th anniversary ~~ Issue 30 highlights
A chapter closes on BLR’s archival cover photos, plus much more as we continue to share issue highlights throughout our 25th anniversary year. // continue reading
-

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 class. // continue reading
-

BLR Editor Danielle Ofri on “Why Medicine Needs Literary Magazines”
“Maybe a literary journal is not so much pages bound onto a spine, but rather a community of people—writers, readers, listeners, thinkers—who find solace in the comforts and confrontations of the written word.” // continue reading
— See what’s new with us at BLR —
-

Angela Tang-Tan Wins Pushcart Prize for “Two Thoracotomies”
BLR is thrilled to announce that “Two Thoracotomies” by Angela Tang-Tan has won a Pushcart Prize. // continue reading
-

BLR Spring Reading with Authors from Issue 50
Join us on May 28 to celebrate the launch of Issue 50. We’ll hear from the issue’s authors live as they share their stories, essays, and poems. // continue reading
-

Announcing the BLR Book Club pick
We’re excited to announce our first pick for the BLR Book Club: Fire Exit, a novel by Morgan Talty. Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME, The New Yorker, ELLE, NPR, and Harper’s… // continue reading
— Come join us, online, or in person —
-

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 class. // continue reading
-

Art and Medicine: Supporting Compassion Through Creativity
Enjoy cocktails, conversation, and community, while supporting BLR’s Art in Medicine program. // continue reading
-

Celebration of Poetry and Healing
BLR is thrilled to be part of the 2026 poetry series at Bryant Park’s Reading Room. All are welcome — mark your calendar for September 1! // continue reading
— Read interviews with BLR authors, editors, readers, and more —
-

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
-

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
-

Interview: Sabah Parsa
“Humor is the easiest for me to write in any piece, fiction or nonfiction.” // continue reading
— A new set of great reads with each click —
- fiction
- nonfiction
- poetry
-

Home Depot
by Robert Oldshue. “You know how it is. You think you’re married, you’re married to Albie forty-two, what is it, forty-three years, so at least you know Albie. Right?” // continue reading
-

A Vehicular Situation
by Maija Stromberg. “’Well, here’s the good Dr. Kaspar stuck out in a field in the middle of nowhere,’ LeeAnn said.” // continue reading
-

Lydiola
by Sarah Yahm. “The ants in her foot went back to work digging tunnels and palaces and palazzos. She willed them to leave but they lingered and malingered and trespassed.” // continue reading
-

Breathing
by Shanda McManus. “My office is quiet except for the noise I make: the click of the light switch, the hum of the computer, the crinkle of my paper gown as I unwrap it. I pull on my PPE—gown, gloves,… // continue reading
-

No One Thing
by Laura LeMoon. “The things I’ve had to do to survive were part of the price I paid to be seen…Freedom in one moment became bondage in the next. Chains exploded into power. No one thing is any one thing.” // continue reading
-

Blood/Shed
by Alanna Weissman. “You know what they say—never trust anything that can bleed for a week without dying.” // continue reading
-

Shroud
by Ted Morrissey. “Your left-behind clothes still occupy closets and / clotheslines in the basement. She refuses to / donate them away, / insisting that family may want / them (implying should want them).” // continue reading
-

Getting Over a Cold
by Margaret Kogan. “First open the windows and empty the garbage. / Next start the laundry, lights and darks. / Strip the bed, wash sheets, pillowcases, / mattress and quilt covers, mats and towels.” // continue reading
-

Something Happened
by Tim Nolan. “When he almost died that night— / under the glaring hospital lights— / she stood off in the corner—she was / herself—she would have been fine / if he died that night…” // 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).”





















