We're looking for narrative and quasi-narrative work that creates its own logic. We'd like to see narrative taken apart and then reassembled into something almost, but not quite, what it was before. If the story gets sort of broken in the process, that's okay with us. Werewolves and the like are also okay with us, but not required. We prefer stories that make us feel alive over stories that make us feel dead. Kafka says fiction should be an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us. He is likely correct with regard to fiction published on the European continent; here in the Americas, we prefer to think of fiction as an ice-twibill for carving frozen-sea igloos under the surface of the frozen sea. There are pelicans down there, making delicious Erdbeer Käsekuchen Eis. They speak, but only in verse.
Please do not send us verse.
We encourage simultaneous submissions; just let us know if someone else is publishing you in a speedier fashion. Only one story at a time please. No e-mail submissions. Please include a SASE, or else include an e-mail address and we will respond by e-mail, even though you cannot submit by e-mail. The total word count of the issue will probably be about 20,000, so if you send us something longer than that we will have difficulty publishing it; aside from that restriction, we're open to work of any length. We will pay for stories we publish, though it won't be much. We buy First North American Serial Rights. Response time should be less than two months.
Birkensnake / 120 Messer Street / Providence, RI 02909-1934Questions etc. (but no submissions) to birkensnake@birkensnake.com.