Risqué Rewind
An anthology about desire & sexual awakening and messy wants before the streaming revolution
Themes: Risqué Rewind aims to be an eclectic collection of narrative & creative nonfiction, memoir, and critical essays that focus on desire and sexual awakening in the time of VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray.
The anthology will feature work that illuminates the complexity of desire, longing and of downright horny behaviour towards movies before the age of streaming and pornhub.
The pre-streaming era required friction, discernment and cunning in accessing media. Trips to video stores, swapping discs with friends or hoping the librarian at the check-out didn’t flag whatever you were lending as “inappropriate” for you to take home. This anthology is interested in this era of pre-convenient access and how it shaped desire and desire for the material. The scenes you kept rewinding, the looping DVD menu of your thirst and the lesson you have learned from it.
Open to all but with a particular invitation to writers of colour, writers along the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, as well as disabled writers.
Examples of what could fit this anthology:
The displaced concupiscence of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Strange yearnings for Billy Loomis & Stu Macher in Scream (1996)
Maggie in Boogie Nights (1997) making you feel something so elusive you’re still chasing it
The smooth, glistening sex of dystopia in Gattaca (1997) & eXistenZ (1999)
What the gynoid in 2046 (2004) taught you about unrequited love
Thoughts on leather, material and fetish in the first three Mad Max movies (1979-1985)
How it felt watching Kate Winslet’s hand hit that fogged-up window while sitting in the middle of a packed theatre watching Titanic (1997)
…
What this anthology is not for:
Glorification of sexual violence or rape, or uncritical takes on portrayals of such in film.
Also profoundly uninterested in anything MCU, or pieces that read like therapy homework. Work related to movies that came out after 2008 will probably not be a fit for this anthology.
Guidelines:
How to submit: send your submission attached as a .doc or .docx to alixberber [ at ] gmail.com and include a short (max. 50 words) bio in the body of your email. Work has to be fully your own and previously unpublished (this includes blogs, websites, socials, etc).
Open to experimental formats as this anthology isn’t as constrained as a print edition.
Also open to publishing your work under a pen name / anonymously.
Word Count: 1 piece up to 3,000 words
Strong preference for finished pieces but will consider pitches on a case-by-case basis.
Deadline:
Submissions are open now and will close once 150 submissions have been reached.
Form and compensation: The anthology will be distributed free, as a digital download. Successful submission will be paid a small, (not market-rate) fee upon acceptance.