Announcing the 2026 BLR Literary Prizes Judges
We’re thrilled to announce that this year’s contest judges are Patricia Spears Jones, Nicole Chung, and Joan Silber. Meet them below and get to know their remarkable work.
Entries for the 2026 BLR Literary Prizes will open March 1, 2025. Submit your best poetry, fiction, and nonfiction until July 1, 2025.
The BLR Prizes award outstanding writing related to themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body. For each category, first prize is $1,000 and honorable mention is $300. Winners are published in the Spring 2026 issue of BLR.
Goldenberg Prize for Fiction
Felice Buckvar Prize for Nonfiction
John & Eileen Allman Prize for Poetry
Click here to see the 2025 BLR Literary Prize Winners.
Nonfiction Judge: Nicole Chung is the author of A Living Remedy, named a Notable Book of 2023 by The New York Times and a Best Book of the Year by over a dozen other outlets. Her 2018 debut All You Can Ever Know was a national bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Chung has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Time, Esquire, The Atlantic, and many other publications.
Fiction Judge: Joan Silber is the author of ten books of fiction. The most recent is Mercy, out in September 2025. Secrets of Happiness was a NY Times Editors’ Choice and a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Improvement won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. She also received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Fools was longlisted for the National Book Award and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. She lives in New York and taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program.
Poetry Judge: Patricia Spears Jones is an African American poet, playwright, and cultural activist who is the current New York State Poet and a Poet Laureate Fellow. She is author of The Beloved Community and A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems, and nine other poetry publications and plays. She has taught at Barnard College, Hunter College, Adelphi University, and Hollins University as well as for independent literary organizations including Poets House and The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church. She is an Emeritus Fellow for the Black Earth Institute and organizer of the American Poets Congress.
