Blair Hurley

Blair Hurley writes novels and short stories that repeatedly examine faith, discipline, community, and the difficult process of leaving systems of belief. A Princeton graduate with an MFA from New York University, she received a Pushcart Prize for “The Home for Buddhist Widows” and published her first novel, The Devoted, in 2018. Minor Prophets, her second novel, moves between Nora’s childhood in an apocalyptic religious community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and her later work as a hospice nurse in Chicago. Nora’s father uses her apparent gift for prophecy to strengthen his authority, leaving her to confront the personal costs of belief and escape. Ig Publishing released the novel in 2023. Hurley approaches fundamentalism through family bonds, economic uncertainty, isolation, and the language that charismatic leaders use to command trust. Minor Prophets develops themes already present in her earlier writing while shifting attention toward survival, memory, and the possibility of building a life beyond an inherited doctrine. Her fiction asks what remains after certainty loses its authority in public life today.