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 We do not publish genre fiction (romance, sci-fi,  horror).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 consider simultaneous submissions, but request that you inform us  immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.