Contest Submission - Nonfiction

The BLR Prizes award outstanding writing related to themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body.

2026 Felice Buckvar Prize for Nonfiction
Judged by Nicole Chung 

Nicole Chung is the author of A Living Remedy, named a Notable Book of 2023 by the New York Times and a Best Book of the Year by over a dozen other outlets. Her 2018 debut All You Can Ever Know was a national bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Chung has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Time, Esquire, The Atlantic, and many other publications.

GUIDELINES:
 

• Deadline: July 1, 2025
• First prize is $1,000 (in each genre) and publication in the Spring 2026 issue of BLR. Honorable mention winners will receive $300 and publication in the Spring 2026 issue of BLR.
• 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 Please note that we do not publish graphic narratives, academic discourses, or works with footnotes. (5,000 words maximum)
• Do not put your name or other identifying information on the manuscript document (or in the filename). Manuscripts are read blindly by reviewers, editors, and judges. 
• Work previously published in print or electronically will not be considered. 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.)
• Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but we ask that you notify  us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.  We regret that there can be no refunds or substitutions for withdrawn work.
• All contest entries will also be considered for regular publication.
• Students/friends/colleagues/relations of a judge are not permitted to enter submissions to that judge's genre.
• BLR acquires first-time North American rights, and the right  to reprint in anthologies.  After publication, all other rights revert  to the author and the work may be reprinted as long as appropriate  acknowledgement to BLR is made. 
• Contest winners are usually announced in November. Decisions for the rest of Issue 50 (to be published in spring 2026) will be made by the end of the year.
   

We encourage you to read BLR before you submit.  Sample writing is available on our website.

We're happy to offer a 50% subscription discount to all authors who participate in the contest. (If you live outside the US, you must select the International option. Otherwise, we'll be unable to ship the journal to you. Thanks!)