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PRISM international is a quarterly magazine out of Vancouver, British Columbia, whose mandate is to publish the best in contemporary writing and translation from Canada and around the world. Writing from PRISM has been featured in Best American Stories, Best American Essays and The Journey Prize Stories, amongst other noted publications.

The mandate of the magazine’s website is to provide a supplement to the print edition that connects readers with the literary community through author interviews, book reviews, news about Canadian writing and publishing events, and other information of interest to our readers, many of whom are writers themselves.

Though best known for its fiction and poetry, PRISM does not neglect the other literary arts. Creative non-fiction, drama and translation are regular features.

PRISM gratefully acknowledges the continued support of UBC’s Creative Writing department, The Canada Council for the Arts, and the BC Arts Council.


I Keep Touching Myself To The Theory That The Bullet Is A Metaphysical Construct by Michael Okafor

The first runner-up for the 2024 Pacific Spirit poetry prize, Michael Okafor's I Keep Touching Myself To The Theory That The Bullet Is A Metaphysical Construct, lives up to the enormous promise of its name. This poem starts with a ...

From the Archives: STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN KNOWS WHERE by Stefanie Lee

Image: In From Out by Parsa Malihipour (fka Glossy Pupils) (from Issue 63.2, Spring 2025). Hello dear reader! Happy solstice to you and yours <3 As we wait for the days to slowly grow longer, I'd like to offer a ...

What happens to your submission?

Ever wondered what happens after you hit “submit”? Most writers who send their work to literary magazines know how mysterious and exhausting the submission process can feel. You upload your pieces to different portals, add them to your tracker or ...

From the Archives: Correspondence Rejected by Andrea Bishop

Here it is: the story our 2025 Jacob Zilber Prize judge Christina Cooke described as "Textured and full-throated... as much capricious as it is beguiling." Andrea Bishop's Correspondence Rejected was the first runner-up for this year's prize. On this vibrant ...