"We Want to Champion a Different Kind of Writing." A Chat with Nikki Dudley, Editor of streetcake magazine

Editor of London-based lit mag takes us inside her magazine

Another interview is in the books!

This morning I had the pleasure of chatting with Nikki Dudley, Editor of streetcake magazine. streetcake is a journal for experimental writing, based in London. This was our first interview with an editor overseas. Be proud of me, friends. For an entire hour I restrained from visibly swooning over Nikki’s fabulous British accent.

In today’s chat we talked about the nature of experimental writing and what Nikki and her co-editor Trini Decombe look for in submissions. Nikki shared examples of work that has been recently published in the magazine, and which typifies the kind of exciting material they’re seeking. Think poems that look like floor plans and colorful collages.

Playfulness appears to be a key component of the work that they like. Nikki discussed workshops that she teaches and exercises she does with her students to get them to have more fun on the page, and not get too bogged down with formalities and properness.

I was curious what the lit mag landscape is like over in England. Nikki said that there have been more lit mags on the scene in recent years. She provided a great list of kindred-spirit experimental magazines. These include Algia Press, Coven Poetry, Overground Underground, Beir Bua, Babel Tower Notice Board, Osmosis Press, Full House Lit Mag, Acropolis Journal, and more.

Nikki works part-time and is also a mom of two little ones. To the question of how she managed it all and avoided burnout with the journal, she discussed a support network that she created during the pandemic among fellow mom writers. She also described being continually delighted and excited by the submissions the magazine receives, and the pleasure she takes in sharing those submissions with the rest of the world.

Streetcake will re-open for submissions on January 15th. They say,

we want to be excited by your
writing, turned
on,
​
amazed by your images, Eyes darting
---------------- all
over the
page /
trying to
keep =

​up, shocked, (shivering) with / uncertainty, smacked

over the
head by
the the the the
craziness of it-


if that sounds like you, then please submit!

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Thanks to everyone who came out to participate today. You have no idea how much joy you bring me!

And, thank you to Nikki for taking the time to peel back the curtain of another lovely little magazine.

Happy viewing!

Reminder: Our next interview will be with Euan Monaghan, Editor of Structo, tomorrow, Friday January 7th at 10:00 am est.