Join us as we celebrate the publication of BLR's 44th issue and recognize the winners of the 2023 BLR literary prizes. Step into spring with exciting new works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, plus interviews by BLR editors Scott Oglesby, Doris W. Cheng, and Abba Belgrave.

Read more about BLR and find copies of the journal at BLReview.org.

“LOST VESSELS” by JEHANNE DUBROW, Winner of the Felice Buckvar Prize for Nonfiction
Judged by Rana Awdish

Jehanne will read from her winning essay and be in conversation with BLR assistant nonfiction editor Scott Oglesby.

Jehanne Dubrow is the author of nine poetry collections, including most recently Wild Kingdom, and two books of creative nonfiction, throughsmoke: an essay in notes and Taste: A Book of Small Bites. Her third book of nonfiction, Exhibitions: Essays On Art & Atrocity, will be published in 2023.

"IN ANOTHER LIFE" by LARA PALMQVIST, Winner of the Goldenberg Prize for Fiction
Judged by Toni Jensen

Lara will read from her winning story and be in conversation with BLR assistant fiction editor Doris W. Cheng.

Lara Palmqvist is the winner of the 2019 Mary C. Mohr Award in Fiction, she is also the grateful recipient of awards and fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Saari Residence in Finland, the Sozopol Fiction Seminars in Bulgaria, the Rotary Global Grant program in Sweden, and the U.S. Fulbright Commission, through which she taught creative writing in Ukraine. Originally from New Mexico, she currently lives in Austin, Texas, where she is a Fiction Fellow at the Michener Center for Writers.

"ETYMOLOGY OF CHLOROPHYLL” by CAROLINE HARPER NEW, Winner of the John & Eileen Allman Prize for Poetry
Judged by Phillip B. Williams

Caroline will read from her winning poem and be in conversation with BLR assistant poetry editor Abba Belgrave.

Caroline Harper New is a writer and visual artist from Bainbridge, Georgia. Her writing reckons with motherhood, ancestry, and natural disaster in the Gulf Coast, and is grounded in an academic background in anthropology. New is currently on a Zell Fellowship at the University of Michigan and serves as the Dzanc Writer-in-Residence in Ann Arbor, MI.

With Readings by our Honorable Mention Winners

NONFICTION: “Your Cane” by Sabah Parsa

Sabah Parsa was born in New York City and raised in Sterling, Virginia. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature from NYU in 2020 and attended the inaugural Tin House autumn workshop in 2022. She currently resides in Brooklyn, where she writes both fiction and nonfiction pieces.

FICTION: “Aspen” by Karen K. Ford

Karen K. Ford is an award-winning author of short fiction whose honors include top fiction prizes from Narrative and bosque (the magazine). She is a freelance editor and writing coach who leads a fiction workshop at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Karen lives in Costa Mesa, California, with her rescue mutt, Dude.

POETRY: “There Is No Time Here” by Karan Kapoor

Karan Kapoor is a poet based in New Delhi. Winner of the Red Wheelbarrow Prize, a finalist for the Literary Taxidermy Competition, Ledbury Poetry Prize, and Julia Darling Memorial Prize, his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Plume, Rattle, Colorado Review, Humber Literary Review, Frontier, New Welsh Review, and elsewhere.