BLR General Submissions - Fiction

BLR seeks high-caliber, unpublished* work, broadly and creatively related to our themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body. We are currently open to general submissions, plus submissions for a theme issue on “Animalia: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human.” See below for details about the theme issue.

FICTION GUIDELINES:

We seek character-driven fiction with original voices and strong settings. We do not publish genre fiction (romance, sci-fi, horror). We have only occasionally published flash fiction. While we are always interested in creative explorations in style, we do lean toward classic short stories.

• We happily consider simultaneous submissions, but please inform us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
• Manuscripts can only be accepted electronically via Submittable. If you are experiencing technical difficulties, please reach out to info@blreview.org.
• 5,000 word maximum (though most of stories are 2,000-4,000 words)
• There is a $5 fee per general submission, which is waived for current subscribers. (If you are not a current subscriber, you can subscribe when you submit your work and take advantage of free submission.) These fees help BLR fund publication of the journal, but please contact us at info@blreview.org if you are experiencing financial hardship.
• We strive to provide several reviewers for each manuscript and kindly ask your patience in this necessarily slow process. But if you have not heard from us within five months, feel free to inquire about your manuscript.
• Authors receive $150 upon publication. Authors will also receive two copies of the issue in which their work appears, plus an additional one-year subscription to BLR. There is an author discount for purchasing extra copies.
• All submissions must be of previously unpublished work.* BLR acquires First North American rights, and the right to reprint in anthologies and online. After publication, all other rights revert to the author and the work may be reprinted as long as appropriate acknowledgement to BLR is made.

(*For BLR, “published work” means published in print in North America, or published on the Internet in electronic journals, e-zines, academic websites, and other “public” or “official” websites. Works posted on personal blogs or websites will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We ask that authors be honest about web postings. If a work is discovered to have been posted or published elsewhere–and not openly acknowledged by the author in advance–we will remove it from consideration.)

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Theme Issue: Animalia

In addition to general submissions, we are accepting submissions until 12/31/24 for a special theme issue on "Animalia: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human."

If you are submitting to the theme issue, please use the general submission categories and indicate in your cover letter/note that your submission should be considered for this issue. The general guidelines below apply to the theme issue. 

"Animalia: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human"

Health is not simply a human concept. The experience of inhabiting a body, with all its flaws and failings, is universal among all creatures that live and breathe. Most species—including our own—are highly interdependent. Even after industrialization and well into the digital age, animals remain an integral part of our daily lives, though we often don’t notice or consider this. Animals and humans share the environment—often uneasily and unequally. We elbow into each other’s homesteads, psyches, and microbiomes, affecting each other’s health. Animals can be sources of fear as well as sources of comfort. Animals can be teachers with whom we interact and learn, and they can be resources that we exploit and degrade. We eat animals and occasionally they eat us.

For “Animalia,” BLR seeks creative writing about the ways in which animals figure into our lives and the way they live theirs. Whether companion or wild, predator or prey, animals' experiences of health can shine a light on our own. BLR invites submissions that explore how health and healing both transcend and interconnect species, and what this can teach us about being human.