Issue 50

2026 BLR Prizewinners

FOREWORD

FICTION

The Senator, by Shannon Perri (Winner)
Hunting Game, by May Lee-Yang (Honorable Mention)
Christmas Eve, 1966, by Andrew Cominelli
My Name is Jin Ishida, by Joongi Andrew Lee
Homecoming, by Rosalind Guy
Hard, by Miles Meth
Davanti all’Altare di Santa Lucia, by Courtney Chatellier
Back to Bubba’s Briny Lounge, by Natalie Hanagan

NONFICTION

Running Deep, by Won Lee (Winner)
The Last Tableau, by Ardis Garcia (Honorable Mention)
Eddies, by Lindsay Sproul
Packing for the Descent, by Amber Wolfe
Echo, by Julia Motyka
Rural Ways, by Nina Gaby

POETRY

Telling the Bees, by Dara Laine (Winner)
Stinson Beach, by Miranda Saake (Honorable Mention)
Spells, by Ted Kooser
Riverbound, by L. Annette Binder
If Not Mercy, by Zoe Boyer
This Poem is Not About the Old Country/the Holocaust/the D.P. Camps, by Margaret Bleichman
On Mucinex, by Katie Hartsock
From Where I Sit, by E.B. Licata
One-Word Forecast, by Jane O. Wayne
At Risk, by Elisabeth Murawski
To See This Body, by Denise Miller
Unmedicated, by Ken Victor
Despite What I Say, I Don’t Know If I’m Willing, by Colleen Morton Busch
Refeeding, by Clara Collins
Bajo las campanas, by Ella Ordona
The Trauma Bay, by Rachael Trotter
When You Ask About My Grandchildren, by Arlene DeMaris
We Lie Late in Your Bed, Once Our Bed, by Sue Churchill
Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny, by Diane K. Martin
Underneath, by H.E. Fisher
Wing Clipping, by Mun Heol Cho
Exposure, by Edytta Wojnar
Elegy as Pre-med Curriculum, by Rick Pongratz
Blue Notes, by Judith Fox
Extended Stay, by Patti Nommensen
Caught It Early, by Scott Dickison
When Moss Refuses to Smell like Velvet, by Darcy Smith
Everyone Who Has Ever Carried Me, by Olivia Mae Longoria

EXTRA

Book Review: Mule Boy by Andrew Krivak, reviewed by Amelia Christmas Gramling
Cover Art by Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre

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