Bellevue Literary Review

Issue 18 of Bellevue Literary Review features winners of our annual contest, plus much more. (Fun fact: the poetry winner in this issue—Amanda Auchter — is the only person to ever win both first-place and honorable mention in our contest in the same year!)� 🌟 📚️ This week, enjoy three highlights from this issue: “Ghosts of Doubt” by Gregg Cusick, “The Wills of Twenty Strangers” by Anna Mirer, and “The Botton Drawer” by Amanda Auchter. Throughout our 25th anniversary year 🎉 , we're marking this milestone by inviting you on a journey through the BLR archive, with special highlights — stories, poems, photos, and more — from each of our issues. 📖 Thank you for celebrating with us! #linkinbio #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #literarymagazine #read

What an honor to be featured on PBS NewsHour’s CANVAS series with a story about our 25th anniversary. 🎉 Who could have imagined that 25 years after “three doctors, two poets and a fiction writer walked into a windowless hospital conference room" (not the start of a joke, as the video notes!), BLR would not only still be publishing, but thriving, expanding its programming, and part of an amazing community of readers, writers, patients, caregivers, and clinicians. Thanks to Jeffrey Brown and the PBS @newshour team, @writersreadorg for partnering on the featured storytelling event, and writers Siobhan McKenna, Rebecca Dimyan, and Vidya Viswanathan, who are spotlighted in the video along with BLR editor Danielle Ofri. You can watch the segment via the link in our bio. 💻 If this is your introduction to BLR, we invite you to check out our website for stories, poems, events, and more (including a chance to order a copy of our new issue!) #linkinbio #creativity #health #healthcare #poetry #fiction #nonfiction @sio_han @danielle_ofri @rebecca_dimyan_author_

BLR Issue 50 is here! And to celebrate it, we're welcoming authors from the issue for a live reading. 📖 Join us Thursday, May 28, at 7 p.m. ET online. We'll hear from these talented writers — including many of the 2026 BLR Prizewinners — as they share their fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from our new issue. The reading will be hosted by BLR editors Saleem Hue Penny and Danielle Ofri, and will include readings from: Dara Laine, Won Lee, Shannon Perri (winners of the 2026 BLR Literary Prizes); Miranda Saake and Ardis Garcia (honorable mentions in the 2026 BLR Literary Prizes); L. Annette Binder, Margaret Bleichman, Colleen Morton Busch, Sue Churchill, Andrew Cominelli, Arlene DeMaris, Katie Hartsock, Olivia Mae Longoria, Miles Meth, Denise Miller, Julia Motyka, Elisabeth Murawski, Patti Nommensen, Darcy Smith, and Lindsay Sproul. RSVP now at our link in bio! 📲 Hope to see you there! #reading #poetry #fiction #nonfiction #linkinbio @huedotart @danielle_ofri @shannonperriii @dara_laine @jwljl @ardis_garcia1 @mirandasaakepoetry @miles_meth @lindsaysproul @uuhhlivia @juliamotyka_me @oaklanduenglish @darcysmith3806 @graphitepoet @arlenedemaris

The theme of intimate storytelling takes center stage this week. Moments of illness, healing, and even good health, can call for us to reveal the reality of our experiences to others. Issue 17 showcases the deep layers to that type of writing—for both the writer and the audience. The writer creates while the audience takes in. Both digging deeper for the benefit of art — and one another. 📚️ This week, enjoy three highlights from this issue: “The Hand You're Dealt” by Jerry M. Burger, “The Consolation of Anatomy” by Kurt Magsamen, and “Describe a morning you woke without fear.” by Jacqueline Jones LaMon. Throughout our 25th anniversary year 🎉 , we're marking this milestone by inviting you on a journey through the BLR archive, with special highlights — stories, poems, photos, and more — from each of our issues. 📖 Thank you for celebrating with us! #linkinbio #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #literarymagazine #read

This is the final poem in Future Tense, and the one that holds everything for me 🤍 It’s about the way we become our mothers, even as we’re losing them. About wanting something of us—something softer, something better—to live on. Maybe that’s what being a daughter is. If this resonates, comment “PREORDER” and I’ll DM you the link 🤍 Originally published in the @blreview ✨ . . . . . . . . #poetrycoach #kellygracethomas #bookstagram #fertilityjourney #writingcoach

Issue 16 of Bellevue Literary Review puts a spotlight on the immense emotional landscape of illness. Each piece in the issue imbues a particular feeling that balances the heavy and somber qualities of illness with the curiosity, humor, and imagination of the human spirit. 📚️ This week, enjoy three highlights from this issue: “SUTHY Syndrome” by Hollis Seamon, “Given” by Nancy Devine, and “Moon-face” by Celeste Lipkes. (Fun fact: Celeste was the youngest winner of the BLR Prizes. Today, she is an accomplished psychiatrist!) Throughout our 25th anniversary year 🎉 , we're marking this milestone by inviting you on a journey through the BLR archive, with special highlights — stories, poems, photos, and more — from each of our issues. 📖 Thank you for celebrating with us! #linkinbio #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #literarymagazine #read

We continue to celebrate National Poetry Month by highlighting poetry from BLR’s issues. Here, Brett Warren reads her moving poem “Vigil,” from BLR Issue 48. What a line: ”...until we see them meet / to exchange their robes.” #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #poem #poetrylovers #poetrycommunity

Issue 15 of Bellevue Literary Review addresses a word that often polarizes, "disability." It is a concept that assumes classification: once a person is disabled, he or she is conveniently tucked into that slot, as though disability were one single thing. However, as the issue reveals, there is an array of experiences within the vast range of abilities and disabilities. We hope you find this issue’s offerings evocative, thought-provoking, and, ultimately memorable. 📚️ This week, enjoy three highlights from this issue: “Plazoleta” by Eric Stener Carlson, “Tethered to the Body” by Jane Kokernak, and “The Speed of Mice” by Hal Sirowitz. Throughout our 25th anniversary year 🎉 , we're marking this milestone by inviting you on a journey through the BLR archive, with special highlights — stories, poems, photos, and more — from each of our issues. 📖 Thank you for celebrating with us! #linkinbio #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #literarymagazine #read

Ready for some new spring reading? 📖 🎉 Pre-order your copy of BLR's upcoming issue, featuring the winners of the 2026 BLR Literary Prizes, stunning cover art by Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre, and so much great poetry & prose. Order your copy now at our link in bio! Featuring writing by: Fiction ✏️ Shannon Perri (fiction winner), May Lee-Yang (honorable mention), Courtney Chatellier, Andrew Cominelli, Rosalind Guy, Natalie Hanagan, Joongi Andrew Lee, Miles Meth Nonfiction ✏️ Won Lee (nonfiction winner), Ardis Garcia (honorable mention), Nina Gaby, Amelia Christmas Gramling, Julia Motyka, Lindsay Sproul, Amber Wolfe Poetry ✏️ Dara Laine (poetry winner), Miranda Saake (honorable mention), L. Annette Binder, Margaret Bleichman, Zoe Boyer, Colleen Morton Busch, Mun Heol Cho, Sue Churchill, Clara Collins, Arlene DeMaris, Scott Dickison, H.E. Fisher, Judith Fox, Katie Hartsock, Ted Kooser, E.B. Licata, Olivia Mae Longoria, Diane K. Martin, Denise Miller, Elisabeth Murawski, Patti Nommensen, Ella Ordona, Rick Pongratz, Darcy Smith, Rachael Trotter, Ken Victor, Jane O. Wayne, Edytta Wojnar @shannonperriii @dara_laine @ardis_garcia1 @jwljl @mayleeyang @mirandasaakepoetry @arlenedemaris @rosguy31 @darcysmith3806 @zoeleahboyer @colleenmortonbusch @miles_meth @courtneychatellier @lindsaysproul @claragraceart @uuhhlivia @juliamotyka_me @graphitepoet @edyttaanna @h.e._fisher1 @nina.gaby #poetry #fiction #nonfiction #literarymagazine

Happy Earth Day! 🌳 Nature will forever be a source of inspiration for writers and readers, intricately tied to our lives and well-being. Like our editor Danielle Ofri (pictured), take a moment to step outside today — with or without a book! BLR finds a way to be out in nature often, as you’ll see in this carousel. Also included is a poem — “You Will Feel a Pinch” by Marylen Grigas — from Issue 27, our theme issue on “Our Fragile Environment.” Visit our website to explore this issue and more. #EarthDay #reading #naturewriting #poem

Several of BLR's issues have been home to early writing by authors who went on to great acclaim, including Abraham Verghese, Celeste Ng, and Leslie Jamison, who won our 2008 Goldenberg Prize for Fiction with a story appearing in Issue 14. (This perhaps goes without saying, but Leslie is the author of the bestselling books The Empathy Exams; The Recovering; and Make It Scream, Make It Burn.) Winners in this contest issue were selected by judges Rick Moody, Marie Howe, and Richard Selzer, and other notables in the issue include stories by Maud Casey and Maureen Brady, essays by Merilee D. Karr and Cheryl Pearl Sucher, and poems by Amanda Auchter and Jessica Greenbaum. 📖 This week, enjoy three highlights from this issue: “Letters to Michiko” by Leslie Jamison, “Okahandja Lessons” by Emily Rapp, and “Anatomy Lesson” by Nellie Hill. 💻 Plus, hear Leslie read from “Letters to Michiko” as part of our 20th anniversary celebration in 2021. Now we’re at 25—where does the time go?! #linkinbio #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #literarymagazine #read

Celebrating National Poetry Month means dipping back into BLR’s issues to find little gems. Even better is hearing the poem read by its author, like “When I Forget a Dose” by William Fargason. Find this poem (and more) in BLR Issue 45, our Taking Care theme issue. #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #poem #poetrylovers #poetrycommunity