The Capilano Review is pleased to invite submissions to our Fall 2026 Writing Contest, Written in the Rupture, guest-judged by Lara Mimosa Montes. Submissions are open from November 1-30, 2026.
Writers are encouraged to respond to the following thematic call in preparing their entries:
There are gaps in experience, places we have ventured of which we have not yet learned to speak. I think it’s fair to describe the living, the dreaming, and the language that manifests near and at the edges of such peripheries as poetry, but perhaps it takes the form of soliloquy, ecstatic prose, asemic writing, or experimental lyric. What is written in the rupture? The poems and hybrid writings that I have in mind are the kind written in ash. These works don’t conspire to create a space for epiphany; they are the remnants that outline a blast radius. As such, they document shatter, dissolution, abreaction, and metamorphosis. These writings refuse formal containment and resolution, instead embracing contradiction over affirmation, freefall over preambles. What is written in the rupture is calibrated to defamiliarize what is common and question what is knowable.
—Lara Mimosa Montes
Mimosa Montes will be reading from a longlist of submissions selected by The Capilano Review’s editors. The winner will receive a $500 CAD cash prize, online publication on The Capilano Review’s website, and print publication in a forthcoming issue of the magazine.
About the Judge
Lara Mimosa Montes is a writer, editor, and teaching artist whose practice and experiences span the fields of alternative publishing and experimental writing. She is most recently the author of The Time of the Novel, now available from Wendy’s Subway, in addition to two previous books of poetry, THRESHOLES (Coffee House, 2020) and The Somnambulist (Horse Less, 2016). She is the recipient of artist residencies and fellowships from Lighthouse Works, MacDowell, Jentel, Headlands Center for the Arts, CantoMundo, and the McKnight Foundation. In 2026, she received a Whiting Award in Fiction. She teaches in the XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement Master’s program at NYU. laramimosa.info
Submission Guidelines
- Submission period: November 1–30, 2026
- Submit up to 6 pages of poetry, prose, or other short experimental forms (PDF or Word formats only)
- Work must be original and previously unpublished
- Works written by or using AI will not be considered
- All entries will be considered anonymously. Please do not include your name or other identifying fields on your manuscript pages
- Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere so that we can remove your entry from consideration
- International entries are accepted
Submission Fees
$25 CAD* submission fee
Your submission fee allows us to offer a modest honorarium to our contest judges, cover the Submittable fees of administering each contest, and pay our editors to read and organize submissions — all the while contributing towards The Capilano Review‘s ongoing operations as an independent, not-for-profit periodical of experimental writing and art. Your submission fee also includes a complimentary one-year print subscription to The Capilano Review!
*Please note the submission fee is waived for Indigenous entrants and anyone for whom the fee poses a barrier. Please email contact@thecapilanoreview.com directly for alternate instructions to submit your work.
Ready to submit?
Upload your work via Submittable here.
The winner will be announced in January 2027.
