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

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  • 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

  • Avtomat Kalashnikova

    Avtomat Kalashnikova

    by Rachel Hall. “Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov wakes in gray light to the sounds of the injured soldiers in the cots beside him moaning, crying out.” // continue reading

  • Evacuation Instructions

    Evacuation Instructions

    by Elliott Hold. “With the fat stripped away, she is her essential self. They don’t tell you how beautiful people can be when they’re dying.” // continue reading

  • Officium

    Officium

    by Siobhan McKenna. “’How do you do it? How do you watch people die day after day?’ He asked the question as we passed each other on the threshold of his wife’s room. He was leaving after having said all… // continue reading

  • How Air Moves

    How Air Moves

    by Leslie Roberts. “Underneath is a body cast, my new ectoskeleton, my nautilus, crawled into, where I live now.” // continue reading

  • Visual Anguish and Looking at Art

    Visual Anguish and Looking at Art

    by Sheila Kohler. “I understand these were commercial jetliners, not ICBMs, that split the steel and glass of the World Trade Center. Someone, a person, had a long-standing vision, intentions, imagined the explosions and death that would follow.” // continue reading

  • School Shooting

    School Shooting

    by Adam Scheffler. “After today’s rain / all that’s left / of the planets / green and pink / they’d chalked / on the sidewalk…” // continue reading

  • Chaas Curry

    Chaas Curry

    by E. Hume Covey. “Two months into her illness, Pat / lay in pain, nearly immobile, / nourished by pills and liquids, / no appetite even for favorite foods…” // continue reading

  • Bury the Lead

    Bury the Lead

    by Renée K. Nicholson. “They say the sharks came early / and stayed late, unwanted houseguests…” // 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