Status Updates From The Rag, Issue 5: Winter/Sp...

Th Rag’s editors think literature is and always will be important to our culture, and a vibrant literary community requires writers who can afford to write. Bylines don't pay the bills. So, The Rag always pays their writers. This helps draw in the talent, and that's the ultimate goal, discovering and publishing talented new writers, and creating a magazine worth reading.

I may yet get back to this, some of what I read was decent and other bits at least showed promise, but I'm reeeeally not feelin' it enough to devote any real time to finishing.

Olivia
is an Eeek! story about the joys of plastic surgery that had me waiting for a twist at every turn, in fact I was waiting for anything to happen beyond a description of the procedures. Hmm.

The Girl with Pretension in her Hair is a very short thing (vignette?) about.. actually the title tells you everything there is to know. I enjoyed what there was but longed for something to happen.

Digital Desert Camouflage is a poem and I think it is about War Veterans. That's it.

Cats as the Meaning of Life is probably about cats but might as well be about Mars for all I understand it.

Vibrancy is about a love out of time and a time out of life (two threads). Most of these stories are about people caught up on the path to something illegal. This is too.

Zeke Stargazing is a gruesome little horror story about diabetes and a dog, and I don't recommend you read this while you're eating.

Passing Through I enjoyed for the characters and the dialogue and the descriptions, but I got frustrated by the lack of a story or a plot and ultimately I didn't really get it aside from as a series of scenes sewn together.

Citizen of Megabus is two pages of prose and actually, I get it. The words tell of an experience within my world and I'm happy to be there.

The Queue (at the Supermarket) fooled me into thinking it was the start of a very deep story that a didn't get but when it ended 2 pages in I suspected poetry and that explained everything.

The Man Who Wouldn't Jump is about missed opportunities and the consequences thereof. I love the poignancy of this story and even though it depressed the heck out of me, it was good.

The Observer Effect
Hmm - that told them! How not to end an affair! lol

Karl's Last Night
Excellent little story about debt and death. Love it.

Putting in the Work is about a hit and continues the theme of justifying crime via explaining and sympathising with the trajectory the criminal takes. All cleverly done.and very enjoyable as fiction.

Not Giving to the Alumni Fund being a well written story around the criminal activity of the protagonist that makes his money dirty and precious and therefore not for donation. These stories mislead me as to whether the heroes are male or female.

Yes, Officer
Like this one - would definitely read more by this author. Can see a theme developing in these stories: a kind of a Devil's Advocate thang.

Monolith Poem about cars with fins and a power station in Iowa and I still don't get poems.

No Sleep Since 1903 I don't really get poems. This one seems to be about some unhappy soul living under an airport flightpath. See - told you I didn't get poems.

Momento Mori is a straightforward tale of necrophilia told by a woman obsessed by the beauty of death. ok - double-take; what's so straightforward about necrophilia? Well, the way it's described and justified here makes it out to be the most natural thing in the world; and who am I to disagree? Just because it's outside of my experience don't necessarily make it wrong! (or right!)

Mixed emotions about this so far.