Bombay Gin is taking submissions from February 1, 2013 through April 1, 2013.

In her introduction to the she said dialogues: flesh memory, Akilah Oliver offers the following definition of “flesh memory”: “the body’s truths and realities… everything that we’ve ever experienced or known, whether we know it directly or through some type of genetic memory, osmosis or environment.” Recognizing “the multiplicity of languages and realities” the bones hold, we can begin to identify the “demons” that haunts us. Grounded in dance and performance art, flesh memory becomes an embodied practice, an expression of culture and ancestral memory, as when Akilah writes, “this text is situated in the on-going work I’ve been doing in performance with the concept of flesh memory as it relates to a critical interrogation of the African American literary/performative tradition.”

With the late Akilah Oliver’s spirit and thought in mind, Bombay Gin invites submissions for issue 39.2 that explore “flesh memory.” We encourage contributors to extend Akilah’s “flesh memory.” Consider the following:

…what the body knows that the mind can’t hold, the DNA-memory of 500,000 years of human experience and 4 billion years of life on Earth, thinking is one way of knowing the world, the other is being…

…the memory of trauma, through repetition and the reinforcement of patterns, the body learns loneliness, self-destruction, body memory is paved into neural and muscular pathways….

… neuroplasticity—through consistent, positive action, dance, body work, we can heal the mind’s trauma that lies trapped in the body; like everything else, it is a matter of practice and patience, trial and error, repetition…

…how has the world impressed itself upon the body, how does the body hold its experiences? what does the body know? how do we return to the body? what does it mean to write from the body? how might flesh memory access the feral space below and beyond reason, the animal instinct and animal body?

We welcome manuscripts of fiction, essays, poetry, and cross-genre work. Poetry submissions should be comprised of 3-5 poems; prose and cross-genre manuscripts should generally consist of no more than 15 pages. Accompany each manuscript with a self-addressed stamped envelope for reply, and mail it to the following address:

BOMBAY GIN
NAROPA UNIVERSITY
JACK KEROUAC SCHOOL
2130 ARAPAHOE AVE.
BOULDER, CO 80302

Please support the journal in which you want your work published.  Bombay Gin can be purchased through SMALL PRESS DISTRIBUTION, on our website, or by sending a check for $12.00, made out to BOMBAY GIN. Thank you for your interest in our magazine.