BLR BookTalks bring together writers and editors for wide-ranging conversations about craft, creativity, and life. This BookTalk features Pria Anand, BLR author and neurologist, who has now published her first book, The Mind Electric. Pria is joined in conversation with BLR editor Danielle Ofri to discuss writing, medicine, and the intricacies of the mind.

In this exciting conversation, we dive into Pria’s debut book, where she delves into the wonder and the brilliance of our brains, exploring “the vast gray area between sanity and insanity, doctor and patient, and illness and wellness, each separated from the next by the illusion of a different story.”

BLR BookTalks bring together writers and editors for wide-ranging conversations about craft, creativity, and life. Our latest BookTalk features Venita Blackburn and Suzanne McConnell, who first connected fourteen years ago when Suzanne edited Venita’s story “String Theory,” which appeared in BLR‘s 10th anniversary issue. In the years since, our editors have watched Venita’s writing career take off with the publication of two prize-winning collections of short stories — Black Jesus and Other Superheroes and How to Wrestle a Girl — and a debut novel, Dead in Long Beach, California. 

Hear more about Venita’s novel, which has been called “the work of a gifted writer who understands love bonds, family, death and inevitability, but also has a sense of humor about all of the above.” (Naomi Elias, KQED review) in our online interview with her below.

Join BLR and the National Medical Association for a free webinar conversation discussing grief, loss, and cultural transformation with BLR author Tyriek White, author of the new novel ‘We Are A Haunting‘ and winner of the Center for Fiction’s 2023 First Novel Prize.

Panelists:
BLR Board Member and psychiatrist Frank Clark
BLR Editor-in-Chief and internist Danielle Ofri
Moderated by NMA Executive Director Joy D. Calloway

Live, online: Thursday, February 15th at 8 pm ET

Join Bellevue Literary Review and  The Paige Fraser Foundation for an exploration of ‘Recovery’ through dance and poetry.  Four acclaimed dancers will create original works based on BLR poetry, set to music commissioned for this special event. A panel discussion will follow.

Tickets are $10 and help support the artists who create this work.

The event link (film and panel) will stay active for 48 hours, so you can also watch later.

Featuring the BLR poetry of Talia Bloch, Nicholas Yingling, Monique Ferrell, and Anthony Aguero.

See author Abraham Verghese read from his latest novel, The Covenant of Water, and discuss the influence of his medical profession, the craft of writing, and themes of time and generational change in a Q&A with the audience, moderated by BLR editor, Danielle Ofri.

Registration includes a copy of The Covenant of Water. All registrants will receive a link to livestream the event. Signed books will be sent to livestream registrants after the event takes place.

The first 100 in-person attendees will receive a free copy of BLR; a free digital copy will be sent to livestream attendees.

In person at The Center for Fiction and Online, Tuesday, May 23rd at 7 p.m. ET.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee, the acclaimed Korean-American writer, joins BLR editors Doris W. Cheng and Danielle Ofri for a fascinating conversation about medicine, immigration, rural America, North Korea, family, and history.

Presented in collaboration with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

Medical student Jasmine Brown began researching Black women physicians at Oxford University when she was a Rhodes scholar. Her debut book, Twice as Hard, creates a new class of role models and establishes a lineage of Black women doctors whose accomplishments are both important and inspirational.

In this moment of national reckoning about the American systems that have upheld racism and sexism, Jasmine Brown has written the first history of Black women physicians in the United States.

Jasmine Brown joins BLR Board Member Ashley McMullen and BLR Editor-in-Chief Danielle Ofri for a timely conversation about the interplay of racism and sexism within medicine, shedding light on a powerful history of Black women physicians that has long been invisible.

Co-sponsored by BLR and the American Medical Women’s Association as part of Black History Month.

Tuesday, March 14 at 7 pm (online)

“The Evening Hero is a beautiful, lush, moving story of family, of Korean and American history, of the legacy of war, and of the trauma of displacement. With great wit and humanity, it skewers the medical-industrial complex and the deep inequity of contemporary America. But most of all this novel is a tender, complex, vivid portrait of Yungman, the indelible Evening Hero.” —DANA SPIOTTA

Marie Myung-Ok Lee –-the acclaimed Korean-American writer–will join BLR editors Doris W. Cheng and Danielle Ofri for a fascinating conversation about medicine, immigration, rural America, North Korea, family, and history.

You can purchase The Evening Hero on BLR’s Bookshop page. A portion of your purchase will support BLR.