Six Questions for Nikki Dudley and Trini Decombe, Editors, streetcake magazine

streetcake magazine publishes experimental fiction of up to 2,500 words, poetry, photography, and artwork four times yearly. Read the complete guidelines here.

streetcake also run the streetcake experimental writing prize for 18-26 year olds, supported by the Arts Council England.


SQF: Why did you start this magazine?

streetcake: When we started the magazine in 2008, it was in response to finding very few places to submit experimental writing for ourselves. The more we thought about it, the more we liked the idea of providing an avenue for people with a more experimental style to be published, whether they were completely unpublished or had been writing and being published for many years. Luckily, there are loads more presses and magazines these days, which we’re really pleased to see.



SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?

streetcake: We both like slightly different things but generally agree on the following:

• The language must draw us in and make us feel or think differently
• The writing and imagery need to be strong, even if the overall content is discordant or fragmented 
• If you can surprise us or make us laugh, you get extra credit!

SQF: What most often turns you off to a submission?

streetcake: We might have different opinions on this too! Though perhaps we would both say gratuitously sexual or violent content without any reason or purpose, work propagating hate against particular groups, and much less seriously, very traditional pieces since we specialise in experimental writing. Therefore, lots of rhyming and clichéd images don’t generally work for us.


SQF: What do you look for in the opening paragraph(s)/stanza(s) of a submission?

streetcake: Something that draws us in. It might be the choice of language, a piece of dialogue, the way the work is presented visually – if you can grab us with something unusual, thought-provoking, funny or beautiful from the start, we go along the journey with you. We generally don’t love over-explanation of ideas, characters or story, especially at the start of a piece. Just like with a literary agent, we want to jump right into your story or poem headfirst.


SQF: If streetcake had a theme song, what would it be and why?

Nikki: I would say something by Arcade Fire or The White Stripes because every time their albums have been released, you never knew what you were going to get. They were/are always experimenting and hopefully, when people read streetcake, they feel at least a fraction of that. Not sure I can choose a particular song, more an ideology!

Trini: Maybe something by a punk band, NOFX, or The Strokes maybe… All of them are quite thought-provoking and that’s what we aim for with streetcake. 




SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?


streetcake: Perhaps what do we love most about editing streetcake? We would say receiving things in our inbox that are exciting and fun to read, that push the boundaries or sometimes even make us wish we’d written them! We’ve also built up a great network of writers and other organisations/presses now and it’s great when someone actually knows who we are, what we represent or what we do. Experimental writing is important to us and we want to share it in the hopes that we can continue to read more of it!

Our next issue is due out in Jan 2020 so please submit. You can also purchase our 2019 prize anthology on our site: www.streetcakemagazine.com

Thanks for having us on the blog, Jim.

Thank you, Nikki and Trini. We all appreciate your taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.