Writer's Guidelines
"...a truly good fantastic story will echo that which escapes explanation in life; it will prove, in fact, that life is fantastic. It will point to that which lies beyond our dreams and fears and delights; it will deal with the invisible, with the unspoken; it will not shirk from the uncanny, the absurd, the impossible; in short, it has the courage of total freedom."
--Alberto Manguel
The Cafe Irreal is a semiannual webzine that presents a kind of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English. This fiction, which we would describe as "irreal," resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Luisa Valenzuela and Jorge Luis Borges. As a style of fiction it rejects the tendency to portray people and places realistically and the need for a full resolution to the story; instead, it shows us a reality constantly being undermined. Therefore, we're interested in stories by writers who write about what they don't know, take us places we couldn't possibly go, and don't try to make us care about the characters. We would also suggest you take a look at the current issue, archives, and theory pages on this web site.
The Cafe Irreal publishes two issues a year and accepts fiction up to 2,000 words in length. Translations are welcome. There is no minimum length, and we accept excerpts from longer works. For the time being we can take only electronic submissions, via e-mail as enclosed text, HTML or ASCII file, at cafeirreal@xxxxx.com. Please include your name, address, phone number (optional) and e-mail address in the text of the submission. We pay an honorarium of 1 cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum). We don't accept simultaneous submissions and, except in unusual cases, buy only first-time rights. Therefore, if the story or translation has been published before, please specify where and when. We report back on submissions within two months.
Deadline for submissions for the February 2000 issue is January 1, 2000.
Editors:
Alice Whittenburg
G.S. Evans
cafeirreal@xxxxx.com
copyright 1999 The Cafe Irreal all rights reserved
Certain graphics are from "50,000 Ultimate Web Graphics", Macmillan Digital Publishing USA
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