Sunday, March 04, 2007

PRISM international

I’ve been reading a few issues of PRISM international (44:4, 45:1 & 45:2). It is a literary journal produced by the University of British Columbia, though no member of the UBC faculty or students of the Creative Writing program may submit their work for publication. However, after graduation, there is no stopping them. The journal includes short fictions, non-fiction, poetry and interesting artwork on the cover. I do have to say, I’ve read some great work from some amazing authors. I’ve also read works not to my taste.

In issue 44:4, PRISM published their fiction contest winners. Honestly, I didn’t really like the first place winner. It was well written and a decent story, but I found it too “regular” or something. The second place winner, to me, screamed second. It was a great story, but something in it said that it couldn’t quite make it to first. I thought the third place story, Ingénues by Ibi Kaslik should have won. It was an amazing story. Utterly fantastic. I loved Mara. I hope to hear more from this writer. Below is her website. She has a book out too… I think I might be picking it up.

http://ibikaslik.net/

45:1 is the following fall issue. I think it contained a great collection of stories. I found many of the stories interesting. 45:2 came in the mail not that long ago. I love the front cover art (I don’t always like the front cover art). It also contained their Non-Fiction Contest winners. [Non-fiction bothers me a little bit. It’s the internal knowledge that what I’m reading pretty much happened and what I’m reading could be quite disturbing.] The winner and runner up were both quite compelling. I encourage the purchase of this issue for just those two pieces. PRISM is one of the few literary journals I find myself returning. They seem to regularly choose amazing authors with intelligent work.

Visit their website for more information:
http://prism.arts.ubc.ca/index.htm

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