Bellevue Literary Review

We recognize that subscribing to the journal is a tangible—and very much appreciated—way of supporting the BLR, thus the submission fee is waived for current subscribers.

Please, no more than 2 active submissions at a time. Please note that only general submissions can be made through this category.  Contest entries must be submitted under the appropriate contest category.

This portal is for BLR subscribers only.  

• If you are unsure  of your subscription status, or if you subscribe under a different  name, please send us an email at info@blreview.org and we'll get  back to you ASAP.
  
• If you are not a BLR subscriber, please submit under the General Submissions category, or use the Subscribe + Submit category.  Manuscripts accidentally uploaded here by non-subscribers will not be reviewed.

Fiction:

The Bellevue Literary Review seeks character-driven fiction with  original voices and strong settings. We do not publish genre fiction (romance, sci-fi,  horror).  Our word max is 5,000, though most of our published stories tend to be in the range of 2,000-4,000 words. We have only occasionally published flash  fiction.  While we are always interested in creative explorations in style, we do  lean toward classic short stories.   

Creative Nonfiction:

We are looking for essays  that reach beyond the standard ‘illness narrative’ to develop a topic  in an engaging and original manner. Incorporate anecdotes that feel  alive, and dazzle us with thoughtful and creative analysis that allows  these anecdotes to serve a larger purpose. Please, no academic  discourses or works with footnotes. Maximum 5,000 words.

Poetry:

We encourage poems that are accessible to a wide audience. Characteristics we look for are vivid writing, strong narrative, and rendering the familiar new. We encourage you to peruse back issues in our archive to get a sense of our ethos. 

Please submit no more than three poems. Each poem should be on a separate page within a single document. 

We encourage you to read BLR before you submit.  Samples from each issue are available in our online archive.

We consider simultaneous submissions, but request that you inform us  immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.