Bellevue Literary Review
Website:
From the Editor
Bellevue Literary Review is a unique literary magazine that examines human existence through the prism of health and healing, illness and disease. In these universal themes, many readers feel a personal connection to the BLR and find reflections of their own lives and experiences. The BLR is published twice a year by the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Submissions
We are looking for high-caliber, unpublished poetry ! and prose, broadly and creatively related to our themes of illness, health, and healing.
Thank you for your interest in submitting to the Bellevue Literary Review. We are currently CLOSED to new submissions. We will reopen on September 1, 2017 and look forward to reading your work then.
Contest
Thanks to all who submitted. Without writers like you sending us their work, the BLR could not exist. We are excited to read the contest submissions, and delighted by the enthusiasm of the writing community.
The results of the 2018 Prizes will be announced this fall. Your patience and understanding are appreciated.
The annual BLR Prizes award outstanding writing related to themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body. First prize is $1,000 (in each genre) and publication in the BLR. Honorable mention winners will receive $250 and publication.
Information
Editor: Danielle Ofri
Print Magazine? Yes
Circulation: 4000
Submission Guidelines:
Approximate Response Time 3-6 months
Publishes: twice a year
Year Founded: 2001
Online Submissions? Yes
Contact
Mailing Address: Bellevue Literary Review NYU Department of Medicine 550 First Avenue, OBV-A612 New York, NY 10016
Email: info@BLReview.org
https://www.facebook.com/blreview
https://twitter.com/blreview
This isn’t a ‘comment’ but a query. I have often wondered if I should try to write, for an appropriate audience, about my experience of being pregnant (6 months) with my third child, and waking up in ICU (in Zimbabwe). The last thing I remembered was having my hands tied to the sides of the hospital bed (they did that in those days) because I kept pulling the drip out. After that I ‘woke up’ in Intensive Care with tubes up my nose and attached to a respirator. I was there about ten days, most of the time conscious. The tubes hurt a lot as my nose got rather raw. I remember having a group of doctors standing round my bed, discussing my case, in bafflement. It was apparently very rare, Eventually it was concluded I had got double pneumonia from having contracted Bourneholme’s disease (being pregnant there was no room to fill lungs and anyway it was painful to breathe, so pneumonia followed). This was followed by Guillan Barais’syndrome. This is all absolutely true. After I finally got better and was discharged, I went home dreading going back to hospital to have the baby. As it turned out I had an epidural caesarean, which was very successful: the baby was lovely, intelligent, smiley and not at all ‘damaged’ by her experience. Nature had compensated and made sure the baby got all the nutrients she needed! I have already half told the story! ….but would it be worth while to write it up as a true life story: without overdoing (or making light of) the subsequent depression and issues I have had (I guess Post-traumatic stress syndrome?). This happened thirty years ago: I’m 66 now. It all happened a long time ago…my children are all fine and so is my husband. It is overall a positive story; and I don’t need pity..or to make money out of it. I just like writing…am a retired English teacher, now living in semi-exile (in S Africa temporarily but will eventually go to the UK ) as Zimbabwe became unliveable. The financial downward spiral in Zimbabwe is another (probably overdone) story). So ‘homesickness’ (now) for the past is part of my story. As is inevitable anxiety/depression. And empty nest syndrome… it could ring bells with quite a variety of readers?
I think anytime you have something you feel strongly about, you should write it.