Winter means one thing around these parts: our annual Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction is now open for submissions! The prize is named for Jacob Zilber, who played a central role founding the University of British Columbia’s department of creative writing, (the very first of its kind in Canada) and PRISM international (us!).
We are beyond thrilled to have Téa Mutonji as this year’s guest judge! Téa was a finalist for the 2019 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for her debut book of short stories Shut Up You’re Pretty. She was the inaugural author to be published under the Arsenal Pulp Press imprint VS. Books, a series curated and edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya featuring work by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of colour. Mutonji was named emerging writer of the year by the Ontario Book Publishers Organization in 2017. Born in Congo-Kinshasa, Mutonji lives and writes in Toronto.
Extended deadline: Jan 31st!
Contest entries come with a 1-year subscription to PRISM(four issues!) so click here to read the full guidelines and to submit!
Prizes:
$1,500 grand prize
$600 runner-up
$400 2nd runner-up
Check out our past winners here: 2020, 2019, 2018
Free Entries
PRISM international offers free entries for self-identifying Black and Indigenous writers for all our contests. Black and Indigenous writers are invited to contact promotions@prismmagazine.ca by the deadline for to arrange a contest entry.
We also have a number of free entries to offer to low-income writers, and we encourage writers for whom the contest entry fee is prohibitive to contact us at promotions@prismmagazine.ca to arrange contest entry. As always, we encourage submissions from writers of colour, writers with disabilities, LGBTQQIA writers, and writers from other intersectional and marginalized groups.
*Free entries do not come with a subscription.