The Rag, Issue 5: Winter/Spring 2013 (2024)

This is a great collection of well written short stories about misfits and losers, cheaters, wife beaters, credit card scammers, murderers, and even one philosophical necrophiliac.

There is some really, really good stuff here. I look forward to reading more stories, and hopefully even novels from these writers in the future.

This edition also includes a few poems and some absolutely beautiful artwork by Meredith Robinson.
Check out her stuff here: http://meredithrobinson.tumblr.com/

In The Rag’s fifth release, Seth Porter and Dan Reilly have published eighteen stories and poems that explore the theme of moral ambiguity. The strongest stories of the eighteen are linked in their characters’ justification/rationalization of immoral or abnormal acts. Even the artwork of the issue, which details human bodies with the faces of various predatory animals such as foxes, wolves and cougars, suggests this theme of average humans contending with the beast within.

The stand-out stories in this issue of the Rag were linked in their use of a protagonist to rationalize deviant or abnormal acts. Yes Officer, Putting in the Work, Vibrancy, Zeke Stargazing, Not Giving to the Alumni Fund, Memento Mori and Olivia all follow a protagonists’ transformation into a character that the reader might be repelled and fascinated with. These are not repellant characters, because their rationalization of immoral behavior or abnormal acts is human. In fact, I found myself drifting down the rabbit hole with the characters, all the while fighting the urge to agree with the materialism, narcissism, and selfish underlying the character’s justifications. Yes Officer makes the hardest case with its tale of retribution of domestic violence. The strongest stories in this set, were by far, the strongest written and thematically linked.

While the peaks were very high, the valleys were quite low. I have nothing against poetry, but when it does little to fit into the thematic elements of the strongest short fiction, it acts as a filler. Stories like Passing Through, though intriguing, do not thematically link with the stronger stories. Breaking Bad is in my opinion one of the greatest shows on television at this time. What makes it great is that it never sacrifices content for number of shows. It does not rely on fillers to carry the story through a season. Of course less is always more and appealing to wide fan base is always a delicate balance. However, I think most of the poetry could have not been included and some of the short fiction such as Karl’s Last Night, and Passing Through could have been included in a different issue.

The Rag Winter/Spring Volume did a wonderful job of exploring the negative forces that guide human behavior. Truth be told, after reading I did not feel very uplifted about the human experience. However, I can accept that madness exists in all of us, and it is our choice to fight it or embrace it that guides our actions.

Please note that goodreads users inflate their scores. A 3 on here is "liked it" and for me that means something that is worth reading and returning to for odds and ends. This represents a relatively high bar for me.

The Rag's fifth issue captures some truly original storytelling in addition to a few servings of standard "gritty" fiction fare.

The absolute best piece in the issue is "Zeke Stargazing" by Rachel Kimbaugh. Funny, horrid, touching and grim all at the same time.

The absolute worst piece in the issue is "The Girl With Pretention In Her Hair" By Billy Lytton, which reeks of amateur-hour attempts at edgy misogyny.

Between the two you get some great "becoming" stories like the opener, Memento Mori, which is a rich and compassionate tale of necrophilia, and "Putting in the Work", a tautly-told story of moral ambiguity. Perhaps the best "becoming" story is the delightfully cringe-inducing and disturbingly upbeat "Olivia", by Phillip Zigman. Zigman has mastered that David Foster Wallace trick of making you wish the story or passage would just end already while you nonetheless eagerly continue reading and reading and reading.

You also get some rough but interesting character sketches, like "Passing Through", which felt essentially plotless but contained enough compelling hints and shadows and oddities to hold the whole thing together. "Karl's Last Night" is modern noir at its best, a quick violent tumble that ends just as abruptly as it starts and contains enough well-crafted imagery and strangeness for a story thrice as long.

"Vibrancy" starts amazingly and throws some wickedly black humor at you only to overly concern itself with having a plot and a "deeper meaning" than it really needs.

Of the rest of the prose, you've got standard storytelling like "Yes Officer", which is marred only by the Mary Sue of a narrator; "The Man Who Couldn't Jump" which makes a compelling point but comes at it sideways and clumsily, and "Not Giving To The Alumni Fund" which is a fun read with nothing specifically to recommend itself. Rounding out the lower end you've got "The Observer Effect" which just didn't do anything for me. The narrative was flat, bland and tired, like the characters.

There's a few odd short prose-poem type things, "Citizen of Megabus" is quirky but very light, "The Queue (at the Supermarket)" felt overwrought.

Of the poetry "Digital Desert Camouflage" is the standout.

The artwork and editing are fantastic and the curation of the pieces maintains a pretty consistent "feel" throughout the magazine. This issue of The Rag is worth picking up if you're a fan of short fiction, character sketches or noir-ish storytelling.

Like all indie publications, there is the good, the bad, and the ugly. This edition of the "The Rag" is no different. That being said, I feel there is more good in this edition than there is ugly or bad.

Plus, it is always fun to read aspiring authors. This lot of authors show promise. For the most part, the writing is crisp and clean; sometimes cliche but that is bound to happen.

This collection concentrates on what drives a person to be immoral. An excellent question, methinks. Through stories and poems these authors aim to deliver an answer. Perhaps not an answer, as this question probably cannot be answered with a simple declaration. Various scenarios of pain and darkness abound -- but the darkness is not gratuitous or simply employed for shock value. (This impressed much because my history with these types of stories had previously led me to believe that shock was the goal and the story was a distant secondary objective.)

The one criticism I do have with this collection is that at times it felt uneven. Perhaps the submissions prevented this edition to be as strong and powerful as I had hoped. But this is a personal opinion.

My favorite stories included:
Memento Mori
Passing Through
The Girl with Pretension in Her Hair
Olivia

Take the time to explore this publication, you won't be sorry.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I’ve read short story collections before and there are always some stories you really love, and some you don’t get or perhaps you can’t really connect to. But so far they have always been by one and the same author.
So this is the first time I’m jumping from one author to the next and that’s been a much harder experience. I guess some people will like this continuous changing of tone, but reading this magazine, I discovered I prefer to dive into one author’s world of stories before moving on, so you really get a good feel of who the author is and how he/she looks at the world.
And then there is the additional challenge of rating a short story collection. It was hard enough before, but rating one by different authors is even tougher. There are 5 star stories here, but also some 1 star ones in my opinion, so where do you end up? Mathematically, I guess that averages out around 3... even though it's definitely not an even 3 stars all around.

Enough introduction, back to the stories: it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster to be honest. I really enjoyed the first two stories, so I thought I was up for a fabulous collection of short stories, but after that the excitement level went down faster than I would have liked. It did spark up a few times again, but there were a few too many stories that for some reason I just couldn’t connect to the stories at all and they felt pointless to me.

Luckily, the collection closed again on a higher note with two stories (‘The girl with Pretension in her Hair’ and ‘Olivia’) that didn’t necessarily stuck with me for the literary value of it per se, but because they make you think about society today and that is always worthy of something too. Our constant prejudices and the secret fun we can get out of dissing people we don’t actually know at all. Or our striving towards perfection which leads us to do anything for the nose to fit.

Generally speaking, I was warned that these stories were grittier and darker, and that’s most definitely true. This collection is not for the faint hearted. Stories like ‘Zeke Stargazing’ by Rachel Kimbrough made me flinch a few times. Mission accomplished, that was one heck of a disturbing story I will not forget easily. And yet, it all felt so extremely innocent.

Another remarkable one was the opening story, 'Memento Mori' by Stefanie Demas. I wasn’t quite sure after the first 2-3 pages though, because I got a bit annoyed by the language repetitions the author used, but that quickly changed and i become completely captivated by the line of this story. Was it really going to where i thought it was going? Really? I mean, really?!?
Interestingly, Demas makes an amazing point of the illusion of fairy tales, where we accept the weirdest things but when they would happen in real life we would be utterly disturbed.

Also worth mentioning is 'Yes, Officer' by John Woods
"The world would be a better place without certain people." We can all think of a few individuals without whom this world would be a better place. The question is whether you can 'undo' moments or people.
And yet, we do it, we hear the song "My name is Luka" and we want things to be undone. We read the story in the newspapers and even though we don't know exactly what happened, we want her to pack her bags and leave the man.
This story was very well written, nicely balancing the drama with light hearted moments, and especially the scenes with his daughter were lovely.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review by the publisher.

One beauty about reading is how it can let you experience other worlds vicariously. But it is easy to transport yourself to a world of fantasy or adventure. Discovering what lies beneath the dark choices made by everyday people is much more compelling. For example, what does a cop go through when he contemplates shooting an abusive husband? What drives the desires of a necrophiliac? How does a college graduate end up a fraudster? How is a hitman born?

Such stories strip away any social judgment and instead are experienced from the point of view of their protagonist. It is not about right or wrong, what is moral or just. Instead, how some people cross certain lines or look at what lies beyond those lines, resonates most.

The Rag's latest edition is an excellent celebration of this sub-genre, bringing together eighteen short stories (a few are poems) that tackle such themes. They all tap into that same vein of social ambiguity you'd find in the writing of Cormac McCarthy, Charles Bukowski or perhaps even Irvine Welsh. None of the stories will leave you feeling particularly comfortable, but that is the point - you often wait for the other shoe to drop, which it may or may not. Such is life.

The writing quality is excellent. Such stories are best told in sparing sentences, avoiding flowery turns of phrase. Every author here does that and some manage to evoke quite a sense of horror without being graphic or using cheap tricks. The final story, a fairly stoic account of several plastic surgery procedures, still turned out remarkably chilling. Some are just quite sad, others are like witnessing a horrific accident happening in slow motion and a few wait until the last minute to pounce with its true deprivation.

I was anticipating to enjoy a few stories here, but not all of them. If this is an indication of the talent writing for this genre, I have many happy years of unnerving reading ahead of me.

My arts center, CCLaP, does not actually review literary magazines, which is why today's review isn't coming with the typical disclaimer; but I was specifically asked by the journal's creators if I might read it and share some thoughts here, which I was glad to do. And the good news is that this is a much different and better thing than the typical "Paris Review" style academic story and poetry journal, the thousands of which that now exist seeming to all blend into one messy mediocre blob in my head, which is specifically why CCLaP usually does not review such work; "The Rag" (or at least this issue) instead focuses on much darker and more subversive work than most other publications of this sort, concentrating strongly on the strength of each author's writing style. (A particular favorite, just for one example, is David Blanton's "Not Giving to the Alumni Fund," in which a schlubby everyman gets sucked step by step into an evermore nefarious fake credit card ring.) Sharp and bitter, with a great look to their PDF version, this is the rare lit journal that gets an enthusiastic thumbs-up from me, and it comes recommended to fans of smart and challenging short fiction.

I don't read too many literary magazines. It isn't because I don't like them. I usually do. It's just that they are not readily available, although the increasing appearance of Ezines may be changing that. If more people read literary magazines instead of People and Us the world would be a better place. Editor Seth Porter sent me a copy of his Ezine, The Rag and I'm glad he did. What I like about literary magazines is that it gives the reader a chance to read the type of poetry and prose that never make it to the mainstream market. The Rag does exactly that. And of course it is a good place to find young writers who are honing their craft.

The Rag seems to be a "theme" magazine. This winter/spring 2013 issue appears to be about the ambiguity of good and evil with each writer addressing this issue in some way. I would place the basic genre of these stories as Transgressive; a genre known for exploring the darker boundaries of human existence. As with most lit mags, there is some unevenness but none of the short fiction is bad. The range goes from fairly good to totally awesome. In the awesome level are these stories:

Memento Mori by Stephanie Demas; The author take on a still taboo topic with surprising sensitivity. It is a haunting story and one of the best best in the magazine.

Not Giving to the Alumni Fund by David Blanton. This is one of those stories that haunt you way after you read it. It reads fairly straight forward but I can't stop thinking there are levels that beg to come to the surface.

Putting in the Work by Steve Russo is a bit more gritty. fitting neatly into crime noir. However, again it is deceptive as you realize this is a murder tale narrated by a guy who is really describing the event as just a another step in his career. Of all the tales in this mag, this one really tackles how we define good and evil.

The Observer Effect by Matthew Meade is also firmly in crime noir as it explores the old plot of wife and lover planning the death of her husband. It's twist is that we get the view of the wife. Is she the victim or the seducer? Or was it just meant to happen?
Again there's a nice balance between suspense and the mundane. This story isn't quite awesome but it is very good and deserves to be mentioned.

Zeke Stargazing by Rachel Kimbrough is another favorite.. It's a very strange family tale that is repulsive and riveting at the same time. I'm not sure I totally understand it but I certainly won't forget it. Also one of the best.

Olivia by Philip Zigman is an excellent story about a girl who goes in for plastic surgery. It takes the scenario to the extreme but has a casualness in its narrator that plays off the grotesque well. It's a nice one to end the magazine with.

The rest of the fiction is fair to good but sort of average. There are some poems and some very short fiction that is more descriptive that linear and they are well worth reading. Overall, I would give this issue a three and a half star rating. The Ezine is also good enough to check out the other issues and to keep it in my mind for further exploration.

When is a magazine not a magazine? When it's on my iPad, and I'm on the go? Nah, that's not it. I just don't really do magazines. I think of them as such trite as People and Us and I could give a sh*t what Kim Kardashian is doing. But I do read Lit Journals, because I like good writing, but I seldom carry one around. I got too much stuff in my bag, and then here's my iPad and I'm rolling across LA as a bored passenger and I'm thinking, "you've got issue 5 of The Rag, read the damn thing, man." So, yeah cool, I'm good to go. And you know there's a lot of facts floating around in my brain. Well, some are facts, some are just bits of information, or something someone said, or… but, now that I've read The Rag I've these to contend with.

4,750 Japanese people die on golf courses annually.
Naked teenagers drown in the undertow of quarries in Iowa.
Much can happen in two minutes.
The name Dung means “beautiful” or “nice appearing” in Vietnamese.
Murderers dress for the occasion.

Ok, so maybe I knew some of these already. No actually, 4,750 Japanese dying on the golf course annually is a definite "no, I did not know that." But seriously, would I dress for a murder? Hell yes, basic black hides the blood splatters. But would I swim naked in a quarry in Iowa, or name my kid Dung? Doesn't matter, don't have to. Some really talented writers already explored the possibilities.

There's a lot of good writing in The Rag. Do yourself a favor and pick up issue 5.

A wonderful collection of short stories, poetry and artwork gathered together from new and up and coming artists throughout the United States as well as overseas, and released to the world as a digital zine.

I really love indie presses and was honored to be given a chance to read this one. All the stories were a little left of right, which I totally dug, and if I had to choose a favorite, I'd have to pick Zeke Stargazing By: Rachel Kimbrough which is about a brother and sister who want to give their mother something she loves for Christmas and it goes horribly awry.

So, if you like your stories with a dash of hot sauce or stories that might make you a little queasy after reading them, then I suggest you pick up this zine and give it a chance. I'm glad I did and look forward to reading more issues in the future for sure.

I’ve had a small presence on Goodreads for a few years now, and once in a while a writer will ask me if I would like to read/review their work. For the most part I politely decline, not due to any fault of the writer but merely because my particular taste in literature hasn’t coincided with the writer’s subject matter. Occasionally though I get a request that I’m happy to oblige - change that – I’m enthusiastically willing to rip their arm off and grab what’s on offer. Recently I got such a request from Dan Reilly….

“Are you currently accepting review requests from publishers? If so, I'd like to send you "The Rag" (www.raglitmag.com) a new electronic literary magazine featuring contemporary short fiction, poetry and art. The Rag is a little different from most lit mags, as the material we publish tends to fall on the grittier, transgressive side, and after reading some of your thoughtful literary reviews here on Goodreads I thought you might enjoy our publication. If you're interested I can send along free pdf/ePub/mobi versions of the magazine for your consideration. Thanks for your time.”

To say this piqued my interest, could be described as an understatement on par with saying “The North Pole, a bit cold innit?”. So I checked them out

“The Rag was founded in September 2011 by Seth Porter and Dan Reilly, who serve as the primary readers and editors. Krissy Marheine designs the magazine and this website. The name The Rag came about both because it speaks to our underlying ethic-we're independent, and we like our writing on the gritty and grimy side-and because it looks back to the heyday of writing and publishing, when you could read good stories or poetry in just about any old rag, and writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald were able to make a living from writing short stories alone. But the rags that used to publish cutting-edge writing either died off or grew up and turned stale. At The Rag, we hope to be on the front line of a new vanguard of electronic literary magazines with the means and the will to seek out and then support fresh voices.

We 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, we always pay our 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.”

Interest now well and truly piqued, and a copy on my kindle – this one…

The Winter/Spring 2013 is the fifth issue and there’s a question that binds all the disparate parts and that is…

What defines an action as good or evil? What drives a person to act immorally?

For example the opening tale is about a female necrophiliac, justifying her feelings, her obsessions with the dead, as she drives off with a corpse. We follow her attempts to rationalize her actions, as we follow her journey away from the funeral parlour. In the second story a Police Officer decides to kill someone, the third is an easy? way to make fast money, the next is how easy it is to cross a line, a young man goes from identity theft to hitman with very little difficulty. All of the tales seem to concern characters isolated from life, from those boundaries that we cross with peril. In the description it said that this magazine publishes tales that fall on the grittier, transgressive side & this seems to fit the tales here, and also the poetry.

Cats As The Meaning Of Life - Misty Lynn Ellingburg

The meaning of life is cats, said the cat

and the meaning of life is your eyes.

A belly of fur and a heartache like hers,

and a shrinking to half-past your size.

Half-past your size when it’s half-passed

her eyes; in her eyes is the prize of surprise,

your eyes were the moon and her heart was half-

June

but it’s not quite enough to entice.

The Kittycat insists in its shrill feline way

even beasts of burden have a burden,

but beasts on the prowl must be wise as the owl,

Wise, though it all be uncertain.

Still, the meaning of life is cats, said the cat

and the meaning of life is a promise.

Though it’s emptier still on that shrill windowsill,

and infinity’s cold, but it’s honest.

Can I just say I Love This, it reminds me of poets like Lear, Carroll & Milligan, I just love the word play, the way it rhymes & gallops along almost tripping itself up, almost - but like a tightrope walker, you’re never sure if it’s part of the act or a fall will come, until you hit that wonderful last line. This is just one of the poems in this magazine, I’ll be placing another on my twitter Poetry anthology @pomesallsizes to give you another example of the depth of writing in The Rag.

*****MINOR SPOILERS ALERT*****

The Winter/Spring 2013 edition of The Rag, an electronic literary magazine, has a pretty consistent collection of short stories. I have never read an independent literary magazine before and so I was quite surprised by the standard of the writing which was consistently above average.

I don't know if there is a common theme that unites all these short stories. The description on Goodreads says: "What defines an action as good or evil? What drives a person to act immorally? These are some of the questions underlying the selections in The Rag's 5th release."

I thought some of the stories were about the emptiness of modern life and people who are on self-imposed exile on the internet or are overtly dependent on electronic devices which renders them unable to form meaningful relationships in their real life. The theme of isolation runs through many of these stories. I'll write summaries of the ones I liked and disliked the most.

"Memento Mori", the first story in the collection is about a female undertaker who loves corpses so much that she begins to steal them. It is an interesting story, but the bit about the childhood where the girl first witnesses death was unconvincing.

"No Sleep Since 1903" is a poem. 1903 was the year the Wright Brothers received a patent for their plane, I wonder if the poem is related to that event. The poem expresses anger at aeroplanes:

"I scorned from my hilltop
with threatening fists and bloodening curses and silencing cries;
they hear only the sound of their engines,
they glance not at the man dying alone."

I did not have a clue what the poem Monolith was about.

"Yes Officer" is your average crime fiction story with a hard boiled police officer and it even has a villain named Randy. I liked it the least among all the stories.

"Not Giving to the Alumni Fund" is my favorite story of the collection. It is about the life of a bright detached college student who meets up with a man with whom he had an online feud on a gaming forum. The man introduces him to the world of credit card fraud. The main character is a really messed up person who has no meaningful relationships and would do anything to earn a fast buck. But an erotic encounter with a woman threatens his easy life of crime.

"Putting in the Work" is about a young man who is from a normal square family but has to carry out a hit for his boss. It is a sort of a coming of age story of a criminal and has a few surprises and sharp dialog.

"The Man Who Wouldn't Jump" is about a socially lazy/anxious office worker desperate to get a date with a woman. It was interesting because it sort of underlines the dependance on electronic gadgets to form relationships in the modern world. The main character convinces himself that "The money he’d save by not taking girls out could be used for multiple p*rn site memberships."

"Zeke Stargazing" is a story a young Stephen King might have written. A couple of kids take revenge on their bed-ridden mother's pet after it bites off her toes.

"The Girl with Pretension in Her Hair" was amusing. Another reviewer said it was misogynistic. I thought it was about the misogynistic thoughts of a narrator who is a self declared asshole.

"Olivia" the last story in this edition, is a pretty disturbing tale about a seemingly isolated woman who undergoes plastic surgery on her whole body so that it is in proportion with her nose. I was reminded of Irvine Welsh's short story called "Eurotrash" (which has a character who undergoes a sex change operation)while reading it. This one was quite well written with frightening accounts of what the character goes through each time she wakes up after a surgery.

Overall, I recommend this collection. It actually deserves 3.5 stars.

Firstly, let me say that I hadn't heard much about this until the wonderful Dan Reilly of Goodreads.com sent me a message, asking me to review it.

I was intrigued not, only by the cover art, but by the fact that I'm apparently famous, or noteworthy enough to start getting requests. Next thing you'll now, I'll be handing out the Best Actress Award to Justin Beiber at next year's Academy Awards.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about the cover art, before I throw myself into the review. Well, it's there, and it serves its purpose. That's not to say that I don't like it, I do, it's just I can't make heads, or tails of its peculiar, bright man with sparkly glasses. But I do like it, and I can tell the artist worked hard on it.

The stories inside are written by various authors, and each pull you in differently. Memento Mori, by Stefanie Demas has its strange statistic about Japanese people dying on golf courses, whilst Yes Officer opens with the harsh, and often tolerated subject of domestic violence.

The Rag sucks you in with its brilliant, garish art styles, and cerebral stories by talent writers. Once you've finished your first story, you are already hooked, you just don't know it yet, and you find yourself craving more of rich worlds, and realistic characters, that you want to both love and hate simultaneously.

These are the stories that can feed a junkie's love of good prose. Each story thrills, excites, and draws you in differently, and by the time you finish one, you want another.

Not everybody will get these stories, and some may even find them too strange, or even high-brow for their tastes. But when you get to it, you realize that these stories are all about people, and highs, lows, and billion other emotions that are the thing that defines us as human, something that I'm sure we can all relate to on some level.

The first I read.

Did I like it? Yes.
Would I read it again? Yes.

Some good stories in it:

-Memento Mori by Stefanie Demas- Murakami-esque necrophilia (!!)
-Not Giving to the Alumni Fund by David Blanton- The seductive life of crime for Halo fanboys
-The Girl with Pretension in Her Hair by Bill Lytton- London people watching (and judging and hating)

And per author, there are not hugely noticeable changes in the style- that’s a good thing I think, the stories are well-curated and the magazine has a clear voice.

I don’t know how avoidable this is, or how useful it is to say, but it was occasionally too American for me. If you say mid-west, if you say Illinois, nothing is communicated to me, in which case it needs to be a bit more instructive.

Regardless, lots of exciting punchy stories from mostly new young writers- perhaps that’s always going to be a risk or perhaps not. New writing can be better crafted and more urgent than the stuff of the previously published.

Check it out.

A few weeks ago I was asked if I would review the 5th edition of an electronic literary magazine called ‘The Rag’ – a fairly recent publication that is committed to revitalising the olden days of publishing when great authors gained exposure (and got paid) through writing short stories for such magazines. Being a writer myself I accepted the review request simply out of a curiosity to what calibre of writing was contained within its pages. The rising tidal wave of electronic books and indie self publishing contains with it an enormous amount of new writing, but inevitably it also washes a lot of garbage onto our shore, leaving us readers with the difficult task of having to search for quality writing amongst the poorly edited bits of scrap. The purpose of this review is to decide whether the magazine succeeds or not in finding and presenting the cream of the crop of new authors.

What most got my attention about reviewing The Rag was its focus on including short stories and poetry that were gritty, raw, and of a darker nature than most published short fiction. Having grown up watching and enjoying violent and edgy movies I imagined The Rag as some sort of underground space that allowed writers to freely explore the dark recesses of their imagination that the majority of publishers prudishly avoid. I’ll begin the review by displaying a list of the books contents of stories and then share brief thoughts on each of them in order to give you an overall perspective of the quality of fiction presented. I will not comment on the poetry as I haven’t read enough to develop a taste for it. Personally I find poetry is best when read out loud by the author, so it doesn’t have as big an impact on me as when I read it myself. I also don’t write poetry, and therefore know little about the format so don’t feel I’m in any position to critique it.

“Memento Mori” by Stefanie Demas
“Yes, Officer” by John Woods
“Not Giving to the Alumni Fund” by David Blanton
“Putting in the Work” by Steve Russo
“Karl’s Last Night” by Laura Andrews
“The Observer Effect” by Matthew Meade
“The Man Who Wouldn’t Jump” by Isaac Savage
“Passing Through” by Jack Varvill
“Zeke Stargazing” by Rachel Kimbrough
“Vibrancy” by Marcus Emanuel
“The Girl with Pretension in Her Hair” by Bill Lytton
“Olivia” by Philip Zigman

The first story, ‘Memento Mori,’ by Stefanie Demas, is a strange but well written piece of fiction. It didn’t take long for me to appreciate the author’s sharp writing ability as her eloquently phrased descriptions helped transport me into the fictional world she had created. Stefanie’s story dives into the taboo waters of necrophillia and somehow does it with grace, never for a moment allowing the piece to degenerate into smut. Memento Mori (I don’t understand the title) involves a nameless woman (perhaps her name is Mori?) who, through working as an assistant mortician at a hospital, falls in love with a recently deceased and embalmed man named Nicholas. It is certainly one of the weirdest love stories you will likely encounter, but it is also a brave attempt at contextually reframing a very looked down upon activity. The story beautifully juxtaposes themes of life/death and preservation/decay, and offers a glimpse into the secret passion of an anonymous person whose love is layered with guilt due to society’s strict perspective on what is right and wrong.

‘Yes, Officer,’ by John Woods, is written with just as much skill as the one before it and revolves around police officer Brett Hastings who struggles to passively allow a specific case of domestic abuse go unaccounted for. Hasting’s first person narrative contrasts his happy and normal family life to that of the victim’s broken one, which becomes an obsession for the protagonist. His desire to take law into his own hands and attempt to balance the amount of good and evil in the world reminds me of Scorcese’s Taxi Driver, and while it is different enough to be considered as separate to that film the story falls short in comparison due to its lack of setting up good motive for the protagonist. At no point could I gauge why he was so obsessed with the specific case of Randy beating up his wife, and I felt that the ending offered no ultimate catharsis for the protagonist or the reader. Still, with that said it kept me entertained throughout, and the writing was of a good quality.

‘Not Giving to the Alumini Fund,’ by David Blanton, is a high tempo story about an unlikely character who gets drawn into the underground world of credit card fraud. The story follows Joshua, a video game nerd, who is introduced to the criminal lifestyle by a mysterious man he meets online. While I don’t believe for a second how he was introduced into the criminal life the rest of the story was fairly credible and benefits from a fleshed out protagonist and interesting side characters.

‘Putting in the Work,’ by Steve Russo, is about an anonymous man who, like the protagonist in the previous story, winds up in some seedy line of work that is uncharacteristic of his personality. The work, we are told, started off as petty crimes (such as credit card scams), but has escalated into his first real dirty job: assassinating a man… with the help of two gangster sidekicks he doesn’t even know the names of. Of all the stories so far this is the weakest one. It’s written in first person present tense, which is a difficult and jarring tense to read (it would’ve worked much better in first person past tense), and is also too descriptive of minor details, while at the same time too vague about important details. The protagonist doesn’t reveal enough about himself or how he got mixed up with these criminals, which makes it hard to root for or be concerned about him due to his lack of backstory. But, if you ignore the slightly awkward prose and stick it out till the end you will be rewarded with a very tense finale that makes the whole thing worthwhile. I feel that the editors were wise to put this story right after ‘Not Giving into the Alumini Fund’ as it almost reads like a continuation or companion piece. They work well together.

‘Karl’s Last Night‘, by Laura Andrews, is, well… I didn’t like it. It’s a stream of consciousness story about a guy named Karl, and that’s about all I remember. It reads like a meth induced rambling you would hear from a bum on the street and quickly forget. Thankfully the author decided to keep it really short so it’s over before you need to reach for the panadol.

‘The Observer Effect‘, by Matthew Meade is much better, but then again it wasn’t a hard act to follow. Matthew’s story is about a married woman named Lyla and her affair with a young boy. Most of the story takes place inside a hotel room where they meet up for sex, and also inside Lyla’s head, as she reflects on her relationship with the boy who has fallen hopelessly in love with her. The story is original but unfortunately too repetitive and circular, like a dog trying to eat its own tail. On that note the author overused analogies. Analogies are powerful literary instruments but if used too much they lose potency, which they certainly did. Some of the analogies were clever and imaginative, but others were just strange – ‘She felt his co*ck press against her. It was crass and unsolicited like a self-indulgent Christmas newsletter.‘ Seriously? My main problem with The Observer Effect is the characters are very flat and unrealistic – Lyla was too disconnected in her thoughts and behaviour and ultimately wasn’t very likeable, her boyfriend lacked substance, and very little is revealed about her husband – which is a shame because a character driven story such as this one obviously needs to have good characters. The way Lyla reacted at the climax was not believable and a bit of a let down and to top it off the story also unsurprisingly ends with an analogy. I think this one had potential but sadly fell short of the mark.

‘The Man Who Wouldn’t Jump,’ by Isaac Savage, is about a chubby and anxious man called Charles who is coerced into going on a blind date by one of his friends. It is easily the worst story so far, and maybe even the worst story I have ever read. I wish I was exaggerating. Not only is it poorly written with lots of lazy word repetition (it seems like every second sentence Charles either shrugs, frowns, stares, or sinks into his chair) but it also has blocky characters, awkward dialogue (the dinner scene where Ian rattles on about how he wanted to be an archaeologist for almost an entire page is cringeworthy) and most importantly a boring protagonist who shows no change whatsoever and is in the exact same situation at the end as he was in at the start. There was zero chemistry between Charles and his blind date Hadley and so the twist at the end where it’s suggested she was murdered had absolutely no impact, and to top it off Charles is totally oblivious to it having happened in the first place. The title ‘The Man Who Wouldn’t Jump’ references a side story about a man who Charles sees every now and then at the train station who tries to jump in front of the train to kill himself but always backs down at the last second. ‘The man must have noticed Charles watching him, because he turned and looked at Charles. It was definitely him: the man who wouldn’t jump. He stared at Charles until Charles looked away, and then went back to eying the tracks.’ Note the clumsy repetition of ‘Charles’, this happens a lot. The man who wouldn’t jump eventually does jump, thus making his nickname and the title of the story moot, and Charles describes the incident like it were a clipping from a newspaper, showing absolute minimal care for having witnessed the suicide, his only thoughts being that he would have a valid excuse for turning up late to work. The side story has virtually nothing to do with the main plot and clearly has no effect on the protagonist either, so I really wonder why the author included it, and more importantly, why he decided to name the story after it. The author bio at the end states that he’s had two other stories previously published in The Rag. I really hope for The Rag’s sake that those ones are of a much better quality, because stories like this suggest a ‘we’ll accept anything we receive’ policy. At the very least the editors could’ve actually edited the story before publishing it.

‘Passing Through,’ by Jack Varvill, is my favourite of the bunch so far; it is the most honest and believable and also contains truly likeable characters whose lives are presented with a remarkably minimalistic prose. Passing Through is about two homeless twin girls named Lux and Tekker who are struggling to find any meaningful connection to the world they are a part of. Their entire existence is each other’s company, but this soon changes when they have a chance encounter with another pair of female twins, April and Finn, who they fall for romantically. The story outlines a bleak existence blotted momentarily by hope and fulfilment that comes from finding a connection, however temporary, with another human being. The twins are alienated from themselves and others and though they find a glimmer of happiness somewhere amongst the ruins they cannot hang onto it for long as they are fated to solitude. This story handled repetition very well and used it intentionally, for stylistic and artistic purposes, rather than unintentionally out of lazy writing. The imagery is sharp and detailed, and the descriptions wonderfully written, especially of Lux’s knife wound, which remained a powerful motif throughout.

Contrast

‘The local twins disregarded their near full beers and got to their feet. Lux and Tekker followed suit. Finn swung a small rucksack over her shoulder and the small troop exited, climbed the few steps up to the pavement, and scanned up and down the ink-coloured street. Darkness had bloomed heavily and the streetlights rained sepia tones.’

with

‘Tekker woke up in Finn’s bed. She was curled onto her side, and looking through the venetian blinds. Pastel blue filled the sky. Morning had come.’

The way the twins perceive the environment changes depending on how they are feeling internally, and so the imagined dystopic world they live in becomes more vibrant and alive once they find a sense of personal fulfilment. Without even realising it they construct the world they live in just by their thoughts alone, and so the way the story ended with the description of the environment transforming radically was a great choice.

‘Zeke Stargazing‘ by Rachel Kimbrough, is a fingernail biting story about two young boys, their obese mother who cannot move, and her dachshund puppy Zeke. I won’t reveal any more about the plot because I wouldn’t want to detract from the reading experience, but I will say that certain passages made me cringe… not in the way I did reading ‘The Man Who Wouldn’t Jump’, but in the way when something grotesque is described so vividly that it makes your stomach churn. This is seriously good writing. Funnily enough my only gripe with the story is that the writing was too good for the context – the vocabulary simply doesn’t match that of a kindergartener, which the protagonist is supposed to be. The narrator, who is also the protagonist, should not know the meaning of, yet alone use, words such as ‘akimbo, agape, or despondent.’ He also shouldn’t know about the things that he knows about, such as the Neuropathy in his mother’s hands and feet, when he is only just learning about basic things such as when to say please and thank you. ‘My class has been learning about manners that day in Kindergarten. I asked Dad, “Why doesn’t Mom ever say ‘please’ when she tells you to do things. He regarded me intensely, eyes doughy and bloodshot, brows bunched together.’ The language just doesn’t fit and it hindered me from becoming fully immersed in the story as I couldn’t help but question its believability. I think it would’ve worked better if either the language was toned down or if the child protagonist was a few years older, but still young enough to be naive about his actions. Aside from this the story was very well written and structured, and it certainly left a lasting impression on me. I would definitely read more of the author’s work.

‘Vibrancy‘ by Marcus Emanuel, is an intricately woven story about a high school physics teacher Mr Goodchild and his fascination with an asian student Emily, whom he begins a platonic relationship with. Vibrancy is poetic in style and is written in a second person perspective, a point of view that is rarely seen in fiction, but works very well with this story. The author effortlessly intertwines two narrative threads – the present narrative with Mr Goodchild and his relationship with his student, and a seemingly future narrative, in which the teacher abandons his possessions and lives as a hermit in the woods – and leaves the reader wondering how the future narrative came to be. It is a prime example of great story telling, and its power lies in what it chooses not to reveal, compared to most stories that try to explain everything and wrap it all up with a pretty bow. Vibrancy is a simple story on one level but also carries a lot of depth. It’s use of second person perspective is fresh and it invites the reader to enter the shoes and mind of the protagonist. Easily one of my favourite stories so far.

‘The Girl With Pretension in Her Hair‘ by Bill Lytton is also written in the second person, though it fails to utilise it to the same effect as Vibrancy. I feel that the only reason the two were paired together was because they shared the same uncommon narrative perspective, as a part from that they are completely different. This is the second shortest story next to Karl’s Last Night, and involves a male protagonist watching a girl on the train and judging her personality based on her appearance. I felt this was one of the weakest stories and it’s a shame for the author it was paired with Vibrancy as it cut this one to ribbons.

‘Olivia‘ by Philip Zigman, is a satirical exploration of how far a person is willing to go to achieve physical ‘perfection’. It is about a girl who has a perfect nose, but thinks it is slightly too large and disproportionate to the rest of her face. Instead of making the nose smaller her doctor instead chooses to make the rest of her face, and body larger, thus beginning a mad medical journey where every part of her body except for her nose is augmented. The story is written in first person present tense but handles the perspective much better than Putting in the Work before it. The narrator describes the surgeries as they are happening to her and writes in a very distorted stream of consciousness style, where we can almost sense the drug stupor she is in from all the painkillers, and the absurdity of the whole situation. Olivia is a terrifyingly innocent story about how easy it is to be swept up in the endless pursuit of modifying ourselves. It is a great climax to the collection of stories.

The 5th edition of the Rag shows a lot of promise as it has managed to locate and compile a wide variety of styles and great new writers. To recap: the collection started off strongly with Memento Mori, a progressive story that really helped set the tone, and was followed by the somewhat cliche but still well written Yes, Officer, and then the exciting Not Giving to the Alumini Fund. From here the magazine had a bit of a dry streak, with the awkwardly written Putting in the Work, the headache inducing Karl’s Last Night, the weak characters in The Observer Effect, and the weak everything in The Man Who Wouldn’t Jump. However, it seemed that the best was saved for last, at least in my opinion, with Passing Through until the finale Olivia (excluding The Girl With Pretension in Her Hair) being a tour de force of excellent writing and engaging stories.

The amount of good stories outweighs the bad, and I am sure there will be readers out there who enjoyed the stories I disliked, and disliked the stories I enjoyed, so I am confident that there is something here for almost everyone. Hopefully once more writers discover this publication and the editors receive more stories (they pay decent money) the future editions will be more consistent than this one, but as it is still early days for The Rag, I can look past the few bad stories presented here and instead see the potential for something great.

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So, this is my first "request for review". I did like the magazine overall, but need a few caveats. First, I am not a short story gal (as evidenced by my reviews for short story collections). I tend to avoid lit mags because I do not prefer short literature. I am also not really a poetry gal. I am left with a 3 star rating on this; there were a few stories that were clearly a 1 or 2 star, but there was a 5 star story and a couple that were deserving of a 4 star...so I had to just average the issue into a 3 star. I have comments on each of the pieces below:

"Memento Mori" by Stefanie Demas has a great creepy tone. I loved the originality (I for one, have not ever run into a necropheliac female character) and the humor throughout.

"No Sleep Since 1903" by Nick Mecikalski (poetry) wasn't very good. I did not like his verbing of adjectives ("saddening" and "blackening", "yellowing" and 'reddening" and "purpling") and the whole thing just felt too repetive.

"Monolith" by Petros Karagianis (poetry) was better than No Sleep, but (despite having spent 5 years in IA and knowing that cold) wasn't very sensical to me.

"Yes, Officer" by John Woods was one of the worst of the short stories. The writing felt heavy handed (so what if Hastings went to college, do we need to have it shoved in the reader's face every three minutes?) and it was not always believable (really, his primary reason for choosing town rather than presumably better paying state force is the COLOR OF THE UNIFORM?).

"Not Giving to the Alumni Fund" by David Blanton was also poor. It was plot driven, but not very entertaining. I liked that it was sort of anti-climatic; Josh is never actually hurt and presumably John doesn't encounter any real trouble, he just ditches Josh because of Gina's threat.

"Putting in the Work" by Steve Russo was mediocre. Again, the narrator is a novice to his criminal activity. I wasn't sure why the narrator would kill his "partners" and then kill the kid anyway. I get that it all happened rather quickly and without thought, but it seemed odd that ultimately the best choice was just to shoot the kid anyway. The redeeming point here is, of course, that ultimately the narrator is not only comfortable but "talented" at this kind of work.

"Karl's Last Night" by Laura Andrews was almost too short to even consider. It held together well, but was basically just a blip of a story.

"The Observer Effect" by Matthew Meade started well. I liked the built up of the tension between Lyla and Travis. I liked that she was trying to leave and he wanted to keep her there. I even liked the fantasy of killing her husband, but I thought the ending was just too cheesy and it felt like Meade was giggling and saying "got ya", but the whole time I just was thinking, "ugh." I also thought it was ridiculous that she would have to pay to replace the key card...those things are free. If Meade needed some silly topic over which they could fight, he should have come up with something better; maybe Travis could spill his wine on Lyla's smokes; we already know the gas station is closed (and yeah, that's another thing, what gas station closes EVER?), so she wouldn't be able to get replacements.

"The Man Who Wouldn't Jump" by Isaac Savage was second only to Zeke Stargazing. I liked the build up here; I loved that we don't really have resolution as to whether Charles heard Hadley being murdered and ignored it (along with the great usage of the Kitty Genovese problem) or if she just got tired of his lack of interest. And, of course, the title story as a story within the story was quite compelling for parallel reasons.

"The Queue" by Ashley Ahn (poetry) was kind of cute in a brand-name-y way.

"Citizen of Megabus" by Reina Hardy (poetry) is almost as nodescript as the drive through the Midwest (so speaks a girl who grew up in IL, went to college in IA, lives in WI, and frequently drives to KY to visit family). I know the drive, I agree with the bland-acity of it. Poem was spot on, but (alas, therefore) not interesting.

"Passing Through" by Jack Varvill wasn't bad but I found it a bit hard to follow. The jumps in time (really over a 48 hour period we shouldn't have to go back and forth so much) coupled with the pairs of twins with wierd names Trekker and Lux and Finn and April made it hard for me to remember who was whose sister (of course when they paired up at the end it required I double check to see what was occuring) and I was sure why out of all four of them Lux had to keep getting beaten up.

"Zeke Stargazing" by Rachel Kimbrough was the best story of the bunch. I loved this. I laughed out loud (of course) at Zeke's feeding and then I was horrified at the Christams gift. I refuse to say anything detailed about this story because I don't want to ruin it, but I will definitely search out Kimbrough's other writing. Spot on, absolutely 5 stars.

"Vibrancy" by Marcus Emanuel was trite. Of course a 17 year old girl is vibrant and of course the reason her middle aged physics teacher is unhappy is because his vibrancy is stifled. Blech.

"Cats as the Meaning of Life" by Misty Lynn Ellingburg (poetry) is stupid. Absolutely stupid, but funny and metrically and rhymingly (yeah that's not a word, but Mecikalski would get away with using it) sounds so much like Lewis Carroll that she gets kudos for the flow.

"Digital Desert Camouflage" by Isaac Pritzker (poetry) was beyond me. I understand it is about the returning vets and their similarities to Vietnam and I know that it is completely cowardly of me to do this but I really try to just pretend that the US does not have an army and we don't impose on the rest of the world in the ways that we do as a country. And no, I don't think that the individual soliders are to blame for this and yes, I do understand that they get some of that blame. Anyway, I just try to pretend all things military don't exist.

"The Girl with Pretension in Her Hair" by Bill Lytton was boring. Yeah, so a rich girl is slumming it. Lots of rich girls slum it. Repeating the phrase "with pretension in her hair" just makes Lytton sound pretensious.

"Olivia" by Philip Zigman was very good. Not as good as Zeke or Man Who Wouldn't Jump but third best in the collection. It got long and was repetitive, but for god's sake so is plastic surgery. I absolutely loved the tongue in cheek absurdity of "fixing" her entire body to match her nose.

I liked a few of the pics sprinkled throughout (the one of the body falling from the house/box in the sky was my favorite and I thought the animal head ones were trite), but they weren't well labeled and honestly on a kindle paperwhite screen I cannot really see them well enough to comment.

All of that said, the mag was worth reading. The stories held together well (although I was a bit suspicious of the editing since so many of them had repetitive themes: Ohio, Oberlin, domestic abuse, lower class educated folks who think they are superior, restaurants with people's names in titles, novices to crime, and second person narration just to name a few), even if some weren't stellar.

The Rag is an e-zine, delivered in .pdf, .epub and .mobi formats, which issues a biannual collection of short fiction, poetry, and original illustrative art. In their statement of intent, the magazine’s editors and founders express their desire to emulate - in cyberspace - the little literary magazines that were so common in the 1920s and 1930s. I earnestly and devoutly wish them unequivocal and resounding success in their project.
The production values are very high, and the layout and graphics are perfectly suited to the dimensions of a laptop or tablet screen. The current issue (Winter/Spring 2013) is devoted to themes of motivation and intent to commit transgressive acts; some are private manifestations of ‘bad faith’, most are violations of public codes, many are overtly criminal. “The Man Who Wouldn’t Jump” is an example of the first: a clueless twenty-something man recovering from a messy break-up begins dating again, encouraged and abetted by one of his fellow workers, and engages in self-pity when a woman he is interested in fails to return his phone calls; I won’t spoil the ending, but it is both powerful and disturbing. Another in this class, and my personal favorite, is “Passing Through” in which orphaned twins living on the streets meet another pair of twin sisters and are forced to confront their f*ckless lifestyle. The dialogue in this story manages to achieve poetic force and concision while remaining natural and believable with no clunkers. The author of this piece, Jack Varvill, describes himself as follows: “...raised in the Yellowknife Indian Reserve in northern Canada before being adopted by a property tycoon and educated at Charterhouse in England....studied Philosophy, then Law, but has sought no further employment. He’s rarely at home but, when he is, it’s in London or a small shack in the village of Itchenor, West Sussex. He was first published in 1999. He is twenty five years old.” Sounds like a modern picaresque hero, and definitely someone worth meeting and, more to the point, reading (by my reckoning, he was first published at age 11). I suspect we will be seeing a lot more good work from this author.
In the category of public transgressions, the first story in the collection – “Memento Mori” - is a first person narrative told by a young woman who draws strength and energy from her romantic relationship with the cadaver of a recently deceased young man (an inversion of Homer’s account of the shades in Hades who, in Book XI of The Odyssey, draw strength and the ability to speak truth from the presence of a living mortal and the still-hot sheep’s blood Odysseus poured into the trench). This story is very well-written, though I am still puzzling over the first paragraph, which concerns golf in Japan, a topic which never resurfaces during the course of the story. “Yes Officer” revisits the moral landscape of the Charles Bronson and Dirty Harry movies: is it ever morally justifiable for a cop to mete out vigilante justice if, by doing so, it is highly likely that he is saving the life of an abused wife and child? If your answer is 'yes', then how highly likely does it have to be? “Not Giving to the Alumni Fund” is told by an Everyman character, and illustrates how easily an unassuming and ‘normal’ person can get swept as by a riptide into a felonious enterprise. “Putting in the Work” is a marvel of pacing and could serve as a clinic for writers who want to learn the fine art of building suspense in narrative fiction; the technical mastery here is on a par with the first thirty pages of Andre Malraux’s La Condition Humaine.
I would highly recommend this collection to anyone who loves short fiction, and most especially to writers learning their chops. One of the delights of literary magazines such as this one is the occasional slip-up or infelicity of diction and/or technique (as an example, the good old “I think I’ll look in the mirror while I’m shaving and describe myself to myself as I do so” device for slipping physical description of a first person narrator into the text occurs in one story); reading stories by talented authors in the process of learning their craft is more like watching high school baseball than watching the majors, and is at once more instructive and less discouraging to aspiring writers than reading works by authors at the height of their powers. Yes, there are a few technical imperfections here and there, but they are of the sort that inevitably occur when an author is experimenting with her craft and feeling her way through the labyrinth toward mastery.
Finally, a few words on ‘transgressive literature’. If, as Wayne Booth (The Rhetoric of Fiction) would have it, creating a work of fiction is a morally as well as artistically consequential act, how does one react to a story like “The Observer Effect” in which a woman (who, unlike Raskolnikov, has no apparent remorse over or insight concerning her behavior) lures young men to their deaths by the trigger finger of her pathologically jealous cuckold of a husband? As Simone de Beauvoir asked in the title of her famous essay “must we burn De Sade?” Although I hold Booth’s opinions in high regard, I part company with him over this issue of morality in works of fiction. I think the reader of so-called ‘literary fiction’ is unlikely to be gulled into pedophilia, necrophilia, homicide or credit card fraud by the rhetoric of a criminal narrator; twenty-first century readers, a hundred years after Henry James, are totally down with the notion of unreliable narrators. If representational literature (my term for a work of fiction that embraces and seeks to faithfully portray the culture out of which it arose) presents the objects, characters, manners of speaking and mores – in short, the world of the narrative – as objects on exhibit, then transgressive literature achieves the same end by limning the negative moral and ethical spaces within its world of discourse. In order to understand one’s milieu, it is necessary to seek out the unquestioned assumptions under which one lives, and to purposefully question them. Was a resident of Berlin circa 1938 aware that he was living under a totalitarian regime capable of mass murder? Highly unlikely, unless he stood the assertions of the propagandists on their heads (i.e., ‘Jews are the Master Race’, ‘war is evil, and should be avoided at all costs’, etc.). We citizens of post-9/11 United States of America need to pay close attention to the negative spaces in our own moral tapestry; a critical reading of good transgressive literature is an excellent way to do just that, and this collection is a thoughtful selection of stories that ask all the right questions.

The Rag is an online magazine published independently and operates with the mission of hoping “ to be on the front line of a new vanguard of electronic literary magazines with the means and the will to seek out and then support fresh voices” and focuses on material that “tends to fall on the grittier, transgressive side”. This edition features original prose, poetry and artwork. The editing and layout are pleasing and the finished product is first rate. Most endearing to me was the selection of so many socially and culturally relevant works. The editors steered clear of political and theological messages for the most part, and aimed their compilation at the cold dark, clumsy and overweight heart of America. The selection and order of the work is also well composed, especially the placement of the first piece, Momento Mori. If the reader continues past this gem, then he or she should like the rest.

“Momento Mori” by Stefanie Demas is a very original (I hope) short story designed to shock. It does. I have been to war and I have passed the bar exam and am a practicing attorney and so I am not offended by much. Thank you, Ms. Demas for a very well written and jaw dropping reminder that there are still boundaries way out past comfortable that can still be crossed.

“No Sleep Since 1903” by Nick Mecikalski is a poem with vivid imagery and unsettling movements. The poet has created a structured cadence that flows hazardously.

“MONOLITH” by Petros Karagianis is a poem using rhythmic alliteration and bold, crisp imagery.

“YES OFFICER” by John Woods begins with a great line, “The world would be a better place without certain people.” In parts of rural Tennessee and Kentucky, an affirmative defense for a charge of murder is the “he needed killin’” defense, as in “how do you plead, Mr. Hatfield?” “Well, yer honor, not guilty, he needed killin’” To which the judge or magistrate will look to the prosecutor, raise his eyebrows and ask, “Well, general, how do you respond?” A gripping, point blank short story about domestic violence and the thin line between the rule of law and anarchy, or is it the narrow distinction between law and justice?

NOT GIVING TO THE ALUMNI FUND by David Blanton begins with a fun letter from the University of Tennessee alumni fund. I went to UT for a couple of years before I moved on and got serious about my education. The author Blanton describes a gamer wet dream, just wild enough to be believable, of the post-modern Risky Business variety. Well written, with an outsider-looking-in edgy style, this short story could well be expanded.

PUTTING IN THE WORK by Steve Russo is a modern day, present tense narrative of a gangster adventure gone wrong. The author has borrowed from Goodfellas and Sopranos lore to craft a very personal look into the mind of a somewhat reluctant street soldier who perhaps has succumb to a sense of momentum.

KARL’S LAST NIGHT by Laura Andrews is another low on the hierarchy crime story, more akin to the Grand Theft Auto genre that Russo’s new age mafia story. Very short, a sketch really and set in Florida, this demonstrates the author’s good use of descriptive, illustrative language.

THE OBSERVER EFFECT by Matthew Meade is a sordid affair, literally and figuratively, and the author reveals an apt eye for detail. An old story told with some new twists, and written in a style vaguely reminiscent of Hemingway. Also, a nice allusion to Mrs. Robinson.

THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T JUMP by Isaac Savage is a tale told with particular relevance to our culture today, the author has a scholarly power of social observation and makes a studied illustration of one man, but also of a generation.

THE QUEUE (AT THE SUPERMARKET) by Ashley Ahn is an interesting, but very short poetic sketch of prose that also makes a culturally relevant statement.

CITIZEN OF MEGABUS by Reina Hardy is another very short sketch / statement / prosaic poem that makes a compact observation.

PASSING THROUGH by Jack Varvill describes a meeting between two sets of twins in Canada. The writing style reminds me some of Paolo Bacigalupi. This is an interesting, if somewhat puzzling sketch, Varvill clearly has some talent.

ZEKE STARGAZING by Rachel Kimbrough is a must read, easily the highlight of the edition. It’s a dark comedy, and is just wrong in so many ways, but hilarious (and yes I do feel kind of bad for laughing). This is about as twisted a celebration of Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa's Waltz” as can be imagined.

VIBRANCY by Marcus Emanuel is Lolita meets Lost in Translation. The author demonstrates an erudite ability at descriptive language and a studied grasp of observatory prose. Also evident is his ability to turn a phrase, as in “you are enraged with the spirit of Toshiro Mifune and have been imagining his hoarse words fighting through chomped teeth as your own impassioned outrage so that now you’ve built yourself up into a proper frenzy”. Nice. “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by The Police plays emphatically in the background and the reader has a hankering for Chinese take-out. All in good fun.

CATS AS THE MEANING OF LIFE by Misty Lynn Ellingburg is feline friendly smidgeon of poetry that makes me think of Neil Gaiman Sandman short story. Ms. Ellingburg shows off an economic, and thus, intelligent poetic form. I think this is quite good, but my meager attempts at criticism falls short.

DIGITAL DESERT CAMOUFLAGE by Isaac Pritzker is another fine poetic piece that makes me wish I’d spent more time in my Sophom*ore English class taking notes and paying attention because I think it may be very good and it’s quality is wasted on an over forty prose softened ersatz critic who could be mugged in a semi-dark hallway by a neophyte Galway Kinnell fan on a late November Tuesday when the blackberries are in season. I did like the Rush allusion.

THE GIRL WITH PRETENSION IN HER HAIR by Bill Lytton begins with a silent, subtle tribute to Limp Bizkit. I may be old but I got it. Another very short work, but hits hard and straight and has a message. I may have missed it (the message), but it is entertaining, and really, when you get right down to it, that’s the whole point, anyway, right? Well said, Mr. Lytton.

OLIVIA by Philip Zigman completes the edition with another tale of cultural relevance, this time an absurd comedy about vanity and more money than sense. This made me think about Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters.

Altogether a very good read.

Briefly: The fifth issue of an online magazine that features pieces ranging from run of the mill pulp to skillful high Transgressive lit. Primarily longer prose supported by high quality visual art. Not pricy and they pay their writers. Highlights include: David Blanton’s ‘Not Giving to the Alumni Fund’, Matthew Mead’s ‘The Observer Effect’, Reina Hardy’s ‘Citizen of the Megabus’, Rachel Kimbrough’s ‘Zeke Stargazing’, Marcus Emanuel’s ‘Vibrancy’, Philip Zigman’s ‘Olivia’. Buy it, , sift through the chaff and find some unsettling gems, support emerging writers.

Full Disclosure: I was approached by an editor of ‘The Rag’ to review this issue and was graciously provided a copy free of charge.

I think it is important to distinguish in reviewing a literary magazine between the quality of the magazine itself and the quality of the writers included. ‘The Rag’ is online only and just in its fifth issue. For under five dollars you get over two-hundred fully-packed, cleanly-laid out pages. At two and a half a cents per page this is a really good deal. Further, one of the magazine’s strongest points (and one that immediately secured ‘The Rag’ a place in my heart) is that they pay their writers. This is a woefully rare and admirable quality in a magazine (not to mention a smaller, newer magazine and one that is only found online) and I recommend buying a copy if for no other reason than to support a publication that respects and supports its writers.
The magazine is primarily composed of longer prose works with a few shorter and flash length pieces thrown in to break up the pace. There is a handful of poetry of which I will not remark on here simply due to my unfortunate ignorance of the art. I offer my sincerest apologies to the poets found in this issue. On the cover, as well as before each of the longer pieces, are full page, full color illustrations by Meredith Robinson consisting of animal faces on human bodies in strange and beautiful settings. This bucks the all too common case of crappy visual art in lit magazines.
I gave ‘The Rag’ three stars not because it is consistently mediocre but rather because the quality of the pieces included has a striking bi-modal distribution. While there is a fairly consistent Transgressive mood to all the pieces some fall more towards pulp (generally of average quality and at times convoluted or boring) while a roughly equal number of pieces reach some pretty subtle, moving and at times breathtaking heights. I will focus on the more interesting works.
The first story that really grabbed me was David Blanton’s ‘Not Giving to the Alumni Fund’. Here Blanton depicts a promising but unfulfilled college graduate who falls, awkwardly but not unwillingly, into a profitable low level and criminal scheme contrasted within a metanarrative concerning an alumni donation e-mail. His transition into punishable activity is depicted here as insidiously subtle and moral ambiguity is played nicely throughout. The piece is written in a powerful and clear voice that at times could have passed for nonfiction. The piece ends full of unease, paranoia and more ambiguity, with the motivations and fates of some characters left deliciously unexplained.
Matthew Mead’s ‘The Observer Effect’ follows an older woman, her much younger lover and their crumbling affair in a hotel room. This one which ends in a bang (or two). High pulp full of witty banter which always came off as fresh.
Reina Hardy’s ‘Citizen of the Megabus’ was one of the few flash pieces in the magazine and one that stood tall beside the longer pieces. A look at the Midwest (its scenery and cuisine) through a bus window, the piece simply full of lovely and gripping prose.
Rachel Kimbrough’s ‘Zeke Stargazing’ is undoubtedly this issues most brutal piece and it is pulled off effortlessly. The story of a down and out family at Christmas, two boys, their dog and the gift of a lifetime. Chuck P. in his ‘Haunted’ era would stand, applaud then pass out cold on the floor.
Marcus Emanuel’s ‘Vibrancy’ is a sorrowful exploration of longing and what happens when a fantasy is partially fulfilled. A lonely man’s dream is brought to life but not in the way he had intended. ‘Vibrancy’ notably features a very interesting sewing-in of Asian film references.
This issue ends with the debut piece by Philip Zigman called ‘Olivia’. An out and out marathon medical nightmare ‘Olivia’ is a seething tour de force, a surreal and absurd vision into what happens when you have just a little bit of perfection. Zigman’s voice is flawless and he somehow maintains restrained and rock steady repetition for much longer than seems humanly possible. This piece struck me like no other in the issue and points to potentially ground breaking things for Mr. Zigman in the future.
For each of the pieces mentioned there was at least one piece that was under-edited, over dramatic or otherwise uninteresting. It is obvious that the editors of ‘The Rag’ have good taste. I would hazard that at this point they are working with an undersized pool of submissions. For this reason I would not only encourage those interested in Transgressive fiction to pick up ‘The Rag’ but also to submit their work to this magazine. Not only could ‘The Rag’ develop into a publication of more consistent interest and quality but writers of a fairly underappreciated style stand to see some much needed financial appreciation.

Creating a short story collection is like a mix tape. You strive for certain themes that kind of segue into the next song to create a cohesive whole of meaning. The Rag Issue 5 is a very well done compilation exploring a broad spectrum of social alienation. These are character sketches of people who could be anyone we know, who secretly do not fit in the world we share.

The stories gradually rise from examples of moral ambiguity to full blown immersion of acknowledged legal and moral transgressions. Then the theme moves along to a meditative discourse on travel, on how you might be headed nowhere while going places or going everywhere just by sitting still. Here it plunges into stories with shock value that make you cringe, from the visceral imagery of an innocent murder and the exquisitely uncomfortable feeling you get observing an awkward social interaction. If I didn’t know better, I’d think each entry of this sequence was specifically commissioned by the editor.

The Rag opens with “Memento Mori” with the protagonist rigor mortised, slowly solidifying with compliance of secret desires, while in “Yes Officer,” one of the stories I related with the most because of the character’s outlook on life, you find a seemingly morally ambivalent law officer doing whatever he thinks is right. In both stories, the characters have decided to make a potentially life-changing decision based on an internal value system unregulated by society; in a sense they’re society’s failings, because they are people who have learned to wear masks around others so they can be true to themselves.

“Not Giving to the Alumni Fund” shows a man taking the first steps down the slippery slope of a life of crime, of giving in to the lure of adrenaline-laced quick money. And I guarantee you some colleges would like not giving money to the alumni fund classified as a crime. "Putting in the Work" puts you in the boots of a man long gone down that slope, faced with irrevocable decisions that would push him to that point of no return. There’s crime, and then there’s crime. This story has a Reservoir Dogs kind of feel to it, rising to that nonsensical moment of futility where you betray another based on moral reasons then go on to further contradict your decision by betraying the very same moral decision just made. The boppy prose of “Karl’s Last Night” follows a young man firmly entrenched in that shady world, just a slice of time out of the oscillation of fortune and despair distilled into a basic and practical outlook on life: This problem needs to be solved NOW or you’re f*cked.

“The Observer Effect” explores a crime of a different sort, one of passion. An affair involves both parties consciously betraying someone. It is a personal decision, sometimes as emotional as it is not. The people within are tangled up in lust, deceit, and mental games. You might wonder if it wasn’t all a game they like to play because you don't really see how it ends. You go from f*cking to looking for f*cking in “The Man Who Wouldn’t Jump.” I had a bit of a time with this one. I couldn't decide if the character was actually that pathetically passive or an extremely unreliable narrator, mixing fact with fiction to paint a more macabre portrait to one willing to read between the lines.

We travel away with “Citizen of Megabus” which is the only piece of poetry within this issue that I could appreciate. It’s not to say that I didn't enjoy reading through them, but, lacking any context, I didn't get most of them. The poem by Nick Mecikalski, “No Sleep Since 1903”, is an interesting enough read, but the virtue found here isn't only in the gerund-laden lines but within the author bio, which has to be the greatest I've read. How I digress! Megabus is a melancholy study of sitting still in a bus. Do it long enough, and eventually the trappings of travel fall away and perhaps by then you can be truly at peace with your reflection on the window. "Passing Through" takes us along a pair of twins who have met up with another pair of twins. We eventually figure out things don't really go anywhere. Sometimes there are just people who keep moving to stay where they are.

The shock value begins to ramp up with “Zeke Stargazing.” There’s some truly cringe-worthy moments here, and you don’t always know who to feel sorry for and settle for pitying everyone. It must be read to be appreciated. This is probably my favorite in this Rag because I feel like I ought be reading this with my hands clasped to my face, peering through the spaces between my fingers. It’s nice feeling, to be affected like that. “Vibrancy” is almost as painful. As youngsters, embarrassment has been a profound behavior modificator, so you can viscerally remember the sensation which is probably why it’s hard to watch other people embarrass themselves.

“The Girl with Pretension in Her Hair” is another favorite. We've played that game at least once. I do it often, and just watch people, try to figure out who they are, where they've come from, and where they’re going. Only I’m not always an asshole. Well, that I'd like to think.

Reading “Olivia” is probably like watching a train wreck, stretched out over many months and narrated with a voice-over of chirpy enthusiasm and steadfast optimism. A fitting conclusion to such a disturbing and entertaining collection, “Olivia” won’t be easy to forget. You can’t understand why Olivia is doing this, but then maybe you can.

Nobody wants to ruin a perfect nose.

In the opening story of The Rag's Winter/Spring 2013 offering, the protagonist explains and attempts to justify her growing obsession with death, and more specifically, corpses. And her rationalizations actually do make some notable points about the typical revulsion expressed over a process as natural as birth and sex even though she eventually takes things too far. More importantly, though, it exhibits the kind of rationalizations that recur throughout many of the stories. Characters often justify their actions based on whatever signs they choose to see. Whether the electricity goes out at a salient moment or a crime is pulled off successfully, these occurrences apparently signal some kind of cosmic approval.

So this opening story provides not only the thematic link between many of the tales but also a nice look into the kinds of "gritty and grimy" writings that are to follow. However, the pieces don't always deal with introspective necrophiliacs; they also branch out into callous crime thrillers, offbeat noirs, and dark comedies. There is something here for the whole family.

The two stories that stood out the most to me were "Zeke Stargazing" and "Vibrancy." The former deals with a family's struggles to cope with their matriarch's neuropathy. In her increasingly withered state, she buys a dog that ends up hindering the situation more than he helps. And in an attempt at kindness, her two young sons perpetrate what amounts to one of the most chilling acts of animal cruelty I've come across. It's one of those moments that is well written enough that I have to give it credit for doing what it set out to do: disturb and unsettle readers. However, it's also a passage I probably never want to read again.

The latter is an account of a male high school teacher who becomes infatuated with one of his female students. His obsession and delusions about the situation eventually lead to an extremely awkward encounter with the girl and her friends. The story is written in the second person, which makes it feel like a psychiatrist has heard the situation and is explaining it back to the patient along with points of analysis. Its real appeal, though, lies in its comments that seem to rebut Walden. It suggests a simplifying retreat to the wilderness may do nothing to increase an awareness of what's important in life. Instead, this kind of retreat may just replace newer distractions with older ones.

While many of the stories had their ups and downs, there were two that struck me as being quite well written even though the narratives involved seemed either derivative or confusing. "Yes Officer" follows a small town cop with an increasing interest in a domestic abuse case and seems to question whether it's acceptable for him to take the law into his own hands or not. The story is pretty straightforward while the protagonist is not. His moral dilemma permeates throughout the town, his relations with his wife, and interactions with the locals.

"Passing Through" borders more on the line of being a fantasy story. It follows two twins who are traveling through Canada to find medical treatment. They stumble upon another pair of twins and attempt to make money by drawing people's pictures. If there was a point to this story, then it went beyond me. However, their whole world is a cartoonish one filled with grays and washed out colors not unlike a Frank Miller graphic novel. The mechanical writing style adds to the dreamlike atmosphere, sucking readers into its despondent and absorbing world.

The collection also includes a couple of crime thrillers, "Not Giving to the Alumni Fund" and "Putting in the Work." These are fairly conventional tales of upper class college graduates descending into lives of crime. That being said, they still manage to build a substantial amount of tension and intrigue.

With all its positive attributes, though, the magazine still contains a few stories I found disappointing. "Karl's Last Night" is a brief noirish thriller that goes nowhere. I understand it's supposed to be quick, but there was nothing there to garner my interest. "The Man Who Wouldn't Jump" involves some pretty bland and uninteresting characters and almost completely sidesteps the more interesting questions of murder it perfunctorily raises. "The Girl With Pretension in Her Hair" speaks to people's need to judge others, something I understand happens frequently. However, it does so in a somewhat lazy way that just seems devoid of any real depth.

And, of course, there is poetry here as well. Poetry is always a bit up and down for me, depending on whether I can glean any real meaning from it or not. Both "No Sleep Since 1903" (possibly my favorite piece of the entire magazine) and "The Queue (at the Supermarket)" provided me with extended periods of enjoyable cogitation. "No Sleep" seems to follow one of two routes: people's interest with technological advancements at the expense of natural wonders or people's forgetfulness about the adverse consequences of modernization.

Overall, there are many solid stories and poems here, plenty worth checking out. While none of them bowled me over, none of them were without some redeeming qualities either. The Rag is definitely the kind of magazine to keep in mind, as it seems likely to continue churning out creative and forward thinking works.

The Rag is a digital magazine of short fiction (and poetry, but I don't read poetry) that is a pleasure to read. It's professionally put together, and the artwork is top notch. Even on my black and white kindle screen, the art stands out. Each piece is an unsettling mix of the mundane and the bizarre, which could also describe practically any story in this collection.

But if you were into something attractive and pleasantly put together, you'd be into architecture. This is a fiction magazine. How about the content? I've been reading more short fiction than usual lately, but I kind of stalled out after steamrolling through my favorites. Many times, the stories in the New Yorker don't do it for me. They're not weird enough most of the time.

The stories in the Rag are weird. Now, being weird doesn't necessarily mean they're good. (Although the positives in this issue outweigh the negatives by far.) One story had so many clumsy similes that I eventually tripped over one and knocked myself right out of the story. One story had such an unlikeable protagonist, but I felt like I was *supposed* to like him, and I felt like I'd spent too much time on "Nice Guys of OKCupid." And one more had an amazing concept, but was a little too rambly to stick in mind.

Other stories had fascinating concepts that you definitely don't read about every day -- homeless lesbian twins, necrophilia, extreme plastic surgery (Kim Kardashian's vampire facial has nothing on this procedure), possibly pervy high school teachers, etc.

However, there are a few stories in this collection that are just phenomenal. They combine a strange concept with a weighty story and great writing. I will be watching out for these authors. Here are three of my favorites:

"Yes, Officer" by John Woods deals with a concept that's fairly predictable -- cop with a savior complex -- but handles it in a way that I find unique and compelling.

"Not Giving to the Alumni Fund" by David Blanton stood out to me for its well-developed characters, humor that was genuinely funny, and the situation the main character finds himself in -- perpetrating credit card fraud. This isn't a subject I normally read about, and the main character's mindset is very interesting. Despite the fact that the guy is implicit in a crime (like almost all the characters in this issue), I like him. Plus, I hate those stupid alumni fund letters I get from a community college I attended ten years ago, so I identify with that.

But boy, "Zeke Stargazing" by Rachel Kimbrough is just a gut-punch of a story. This one is the highlight of the issue for me by far. It's one of those tragic childhood stories, but without being manipulative or sentimental. I don't want to give anything away, because not knowing where it was going made it shocking and stomach turning in the best of ways. But even without the shock value (it's not a "twist ending" type of story), it would still stick with me.

Anyway, I highly recommend this magazine for fans of short fiction. All the stories, even the ones I didn't personally connect with, are fresh, freaky, and engaging.

*I received a copy of this magazine (.mobi format) in exchange for an honest review.

I found this to be a quite enjoyable collection of contemporary short fiction and poetry. My enthusiasm ebbed and flowed, as is normal, but the issue closed on a good note, with a fantastic and disquieting short story of considerable merit. I was expecting (from the macabre and eerie artwork) a somewhat rougher and more disturbing level of content, but, to be honest, there was nothing so objectionable in this magazine that the general public would really lose their heads if they read it. Still, they'd probably feel offended and/or disgusted at several points. To be honest, it is probably better to keep distance from sensationalism and pure genre, and instead chase the eternal chase of 'the' amateur, young, contemporary and/or hip short story.

Presentation-wise everything is solid, recalling many other young fiction magazines I've encountered. Clean layouts, nice artwork, fresh design, the kind of stuff you'd expect. Nothing out of the ordinary here, except they're online-only and very e-reader friendly. It seems like the progressive endpoint of fiction: perhaps we are all at the dawn of an endless sea of online fiction burning the retinas of determined and errant readers. I am biased in favor of print but the economic and ecological benefits of electronic print are pretty clear.

The content was similarly typical, but with an abundance of darker themes and greyish conclusions. Some death, some abuse, some gore here and there, clinical descriptions of violence and trauma, some odd conflicts, damaged characters, and some misunderstood love for good measure. The offerings are not overbearingly similar, thankfully. There was a general focus on short fiction, but there were also several poems and even a couple of prose poems. Variety, but no overgrown wilderness of artistic ambition. I enjoyed many of the stories immensely, but some were definitely better than others. The final story, 'Olivia', was kind of a 'saving the best for last' type of situation (not to say that the precedents were incredibly lackluster or anything) where it got to the point of making me uncomfortable, or even squeamish.

It's always good to read what one's peers are writing (especially when they're in your general situation and not out-and-out bestsellers, critical darlings, 'rising stars', or hype victims) and cogitate about it and, ultimately, that's what lit mags are all about, whether they send you boilerplate rejections or not the importance is still there; note that I have not submitted to the 'The Rag' (and am unaffiliated in general), but I've tangled with its ilk before. Generally you can pick up on the climate of writing by reading widely, but generally (here begins a vicious cycle) you only really care about smaller publications if you write, are friends/local with it, or are absolutely voracious as a reader/self-promoter.

On the grounds discussed above and more, I would easily recommend 'The Rag' – especially to anyone with an abiding interest in getting a wider (even under-the-radar) idea of the contemporary scene. Odds are you'll get a kick out of it.

“The Rag” is a short story and poetry magazine whose contents veer towards the gritty side of literary fiction. Several of the pieces here are a mix of messed-up relationships, drug deals, guns and violence. Characterisation lies at the core of these stories, so much so that our involvement in their lives sometimes makes the denouement not quite ring true, as in “The Observer Effect” by Matthew Meade, where the ending seems overly dramatic and a little clichéd considering the emotional investment the reader has invoked with the characters. Nevertheless, in that story – and elsewhere in the magazine – there is much to appreciate and Issue 5 of “The Rag” is very much worth your time.

Opener, “Memento Mori”, by Stefanie Demas references both fairytales and deaths on Japanese golf courses, however I felt the latter was more misdirection, and the former moved the story from an interesting character scenario into a boxed-in by the numbers construct. Similar to “The Observer Effect”, the characterisation was superb, but almost seemed constrained by the story, whereas in “Yes Officer” by John Woods, the policeman who cannot keep his personal feelings separate from his job makes a quietly effective story, with all elements coming together in a conclusion that although somewhat inevitable is no less powerful for that. Other longer stories were also engaging, especially “Vibrancy” by Marcus Emanuel which whilst told in the second person is an exceptionally involving piece about a man’s internalised conversations and the importance of reality.

Generally, however, I preferred the shorter blasts of prose to the longer pieces; like Reina Hardy’s “Citizen of Megabus” which evokes truckstop memories and snatches of life through vehicle windows. And “The Girl With Pretension In Her Hair” by Bill Lytton, where an ‘asshole’ appraises the attractive girl sitting opposite on the underground – an intelligent dissection which sucks us in with the detail before we realise his appraisal might be utterly without foundation; that we have empathised with a man who perhaps we should have shied away from.

Most of the poetry was excellent. I particularly enjoyed “No Sleep Since 1903” by Nick Mecikalski with its rhythmic repetition (“I know these four cities / their dustening streets and downwarding gazes and trappening walls / their sleepening planes and fadening contrails and greyening skies”). “Monolith” by Petros Karagianis was also very evocative. In contrast I was less keen on “Cats As The Meaning Of Life” by Misty Lynn Ellingburg, but this comes to personal preference against rhyming poems (particularly those involving cats!). Ultimately, though, I guess there is something for everyone here.

The magazine has colour artwork throughout by Meredith Robinson featuring human figures with animal heads in a variety of poses. Being a penguin-mask wearer myself on many an occasion, I approved of these subtle portraits.

In summary, “The Rag” is well worth reading.

Short stories, generally, are delicious. You can dip in, play around, indulge at whim, revisit with ease. And they can be profound; the best are pure genius.

The Rag is a lovingly curated platform for contemporary writers of particular genre of shorts; Here in this edition is noir, taboo, outsider fiction. Throughout, there's a youthful, fresh edge; unselfconscious. At times, adventurous, experimental, at others, imitative yet expanding.

From the first, Memento Mori, a regaling of cadaver misappropriation and curriculum of necrophilia, written in an engaging style and not without a hint of humour (I imagined Holden Caulfield as a woman with a romantic passion for the recently deceased) - to the last, in Olivia, an absurd surgical pursuit for perfection told matter of fact, there's a wealth of great stories.

As expected from the introduction, the edition offers plenty of noir and semi-noir stories. There's a tranche of these close to the start. I thought this might be the theme and, really, given the quality of these, I wouldn't have minded. There's underworld (Putting in the Work); fraud and laundering (Not Giving to the Alumni Fund); loan shark noir (Karl's Last Night); domestic noir (Yes, Officer); and femme-fatale (The Observer Effect).

There's also strange, observational tales; The Man Who Wouldn't Jump; The Girl with Pretensions in Her Hair, a forlorn relationship between tutor and student; Vibrancy, and the almost inscrutable, clubbing twins; Passing Through. The Poe-like, pet dog, horror-misadventure that's Zeke Stargazing is fantastically good and had me wincing up to the finale.

There is, of course, poetry, but I leave these to those who have a better understanding of it. I did take an interest and the piece that touched me was the brief and wonderfully observed, Citizen of Megabus - really a prose poem and likely the shortest of all the contributions.

Last, but not least, are the multi-media artwork illustrations by Meredith Robinson. I had expected, and wished, for more, and, good as they are, possibly more in tune with the themes. There's much you can do within the ebook medium, the future is bright for publications like The Rag.

Highly recommended.

A collection of mostly crime stories, with a couple poems and a couple stories of a less-definable downbeat nature here. But definitely a lot of crime stories, mostly folks on the low end of the criminal enterprise, otherwise (maybe) decent people who've got themselves into trouble. So in David Blanton's arch "Not Giving to the Alumni Fund," an otherwise good guy finds himself buying electronics with fake credit cards so an acquaintance can fence them, giving the narrator a kickback that he won't share with his old school because, well, his skills and methods don't really align with the old school mission. In Steve Russo's "Putting in the Work," a suburban regular pulls off a hit and steps up in the criminal heirarchy, whereas in John Woods' "Yes Officer," the titular cop kills a man who is beating up a girl not together enough to get away from her abuser. In that story, one of the best here, the narrator is a self-consciously awkward mix of college polish and working class aggression, and even if his actions in the end don't really complicate a reader's relationship to him, the portrait feels three dimensional.

The stories are often separated by flat, almost Ikonic paintings by Meredith Robinson, usually portraits on a very flat picture plane. They are striking works, and function well as almost chapter headings here. There are a couple poems here, many of which betray a counter-cultural or beat influence. The best of these might be Isaak Pritzker's poem "Digital Desert Camouflage" and I also liked the prose poem "Citizen of Megabus" by Reina Hardy.

Overall, I thought this was decent, well-put together stuff, but a little repetitive. I think Rag is an annual, and there's a good year's worth of reading here, but if you try to read it over a couple days, like I did, you might wish for more variety-- more poems, for starters, but also fewer pieces about crime and low level criminals. Also, more writing that wasn't so tied to realism: I'm not asking for fantasy or science fiction, but instead writing that whose primary goal wasn't to make me believe the writer was documenting a reality crueler that was crueler than I knew.

Overall, not bad. Not great either, but I didn't feel like I wasted my time. Like most artistic ventures, tastes will vary with the individual. For me, the subject matter lived up to the advertisem*nt of being on the grittier side of life. That never bothers me. I won't even bother saying anything positive or negative about the poetry, because that's just not my thing. Every time I read a modern poem, I can't get into them. I'm always struck by how hard each author seems to be trying to cram in clever wordplay with deep, imperceptible meaning that isn't obvious on a conscious level. That works for many, but not me.
The short stories were all well written, from a grammatical point of view. I won't pretend like every single one entertained me. It was just obvious that real work went into each one. My favorite was 'The Girl With Pretension in Her Hair'. That probably says a lot about me. The problem I found with the total body of work was that each story felt like an abbreviated chapter from a larger story that wasn't going to get told. There's some depth to each one, but not enough to get a foothold on my attention span. Some of these could easily be expanded to at least novellas probably worth reading, and maybe they will.
As I said, not bad in all. You get several different styles in a short amount of time, and it's a definite change up from what I had been reading. I'm not upset I gave it a read, and I wouldn't object to checking out further or past issues. Never know what you'll find.

An electronic magazine featuring short stories, poetry and art, this issue looks at the idea of morality and explores some characters and situations with a slightly unusual edge. Starting out strong with Memento Mori, which effectively set out the magazine's stall - you know that from here on out you're in for something thought-provoking and morally murky, with strong voices and a strange beauty - each piece maintained the standards of the last and made sure that even the odd piece that didn't quite interest me still wasn't a particularly low point.

As with other collections I've read, I preferred the short stories to the poetry (though that's due simply to my preference for that medium rather than any issue of quality on display) and I loved the artwork (making me think of fairy tales, though in their original forms rather than the Disney versions)

Stand-outs for me were Yes Officer, Zeke Stargazing and The Girl With Pretension In Her Hair and I note that some of the work within was the first time particular writers had been published. Based on the strength of this, I doubt it will be the last.

**Note: I received a free copy of this publication in exchange for an honest review.**

Slow as I am with reading printed matter, as opposed to listening to audiobooks, it has taken me awhile to read the several items I read in this attractively formatted 'zine. It is digital only, so I have had time to peek at it pages only when I can get at my computer.
In any case, I find THE RAG very congenial. In it is a story about a deputy sheriff in a small town, a young man with an intellectual bent, who finds he must come up with a way to resolve the problem of a local who insists on beating his girlfriend. It is as straightforward as anything by Stephen King in one of his more realistic modes.
THE RAG is best compared to an indy record label. Various literary artists are given a platform here, but they all share an earnestness I find refreshing. These authors are not poseurs. They are not trying to blind us with charm or win us over through identity politics.
It's a very solid literary magazine.

The work in The Rag is dark, and some of it is quite compelling. Among these dark stories, Meredith Robinson's art shimmers--quirky and strange and lovely all at once.

Personally, I found the majority of the stories a bit pedestrian and generic--trope crime stories about cheating husbands and gun fights and drug deals gone awry. But there were some high points, among them "Vibrancy" by Marcus Emanuel and "Zeke Stargazing" by Rachel Kimbrough. "Zeke Stargazing" in particular was gruesome and horrifying--so much so that I had to stop reading at a certain point. "Memento Mori" is similarly disturbing, but in an interesting way, though the narrative was a little too meandering.

Overall, this is an impressive publication, full of first-time authors and potential for good things. I'm interested to see what's next.