Auggie @ The Rag

A feisty excerpt from Auggie's Revenge appeared at The Rag.

The Rag[e] in Brooklyn

The Rag and Canteen Magazine are hosting a free party on Friday, September 21 at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn, NY. The party starts at 8:30 following Canteen's Outwrite event at 7:00. This is a subscription party, where joint annual subscriptions to The Rag and Canteen will be available at a discounted price. An open bar will be provided, courtesy of Brooklyn Brewery and The Noble Experiment. Yes, free booze. And bands (to be announced). You must be 21 or older to attend. You can RSVP through Facebook but please also email Dan (dan@raglitmag.com). Remember, this is a free event and occupancy is limited. It will fill up fast, so sign up today. We'll see you in September.

April 4 (Dogplotz Dice Roll)

Over at facebook, I just survived getting tagged by the Emporer of Dogplotz, aka nine-time Atlantic City dice champion Barry Graham, so I thought I'd follow up by mentioning the book he mistakenly had me down as citing. It's Nothing or Next to Nothing, and I just picked up an eight-dollar copy from Main Street Rag, and if you follow this link, you can, too. Based upon what I read in The National Virginity Pledge, if you can get into Dan Fante, Bukowski, SaFranko et al, you may like Barry's writing.

One of my favorites from Virginity was Graham's gambling story. It was one of the longest in the collection of sometimes flash-length fiction, and the tale also reminded me a bit of other recent reads: The Rag's "D-Gen" and Steve Almond's lead story in the 2010 Best of American Short Stories, "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched." Within twenty years, it could be legal to strip search and pepper spray anyone seen gambling at less than a grand a throw, so there will continue to be a lot of gambling tales to pen on cocktail napkins. The ones I just mentioned could be the trailblazing stories in twenty-first century casino fiction.

Kim Gek Lin Short, Eric D. Goodman, The Rag and more

An Evening of Literature with Alex Kudera: Starring Kim Gek Lin Short, Featuring Eric D. Goodman, and Introducing The Rag.

Please join us at Moonstone Arts Center on Wednesday evening March 21 at 7 p.m. for readings of original fiction and poetry from the Mid-Atlantic Region. Wine and snacks will be served, and signed copies of recent titles will be available from various authors.

Kim Gek Lin Short was born in Singapore and spent her childhood in places like Manila, Jakarta, and Calgary. She moved to the States during the wonderful terrible 80s and lived in Denver, San Francisco, and Brooklyn before settling in Philly where she co-curates the reading series General Idea, and is an editor at Coconut. Kim’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in numerous publications such as Absent, Caketrain, and No Tell Motel, and in anthologies like Narrative (Dis)Continuties: Prose Experiments by Younger American Writers. Her books include The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits and the lyric novel China Cowboy, both from Tarpaulin Sky Press, and the chapbooks The Residents (dancing girl press) and Run (Rope-a-Dope), a 2010 Golden Gloves winner.

Eric D. Goodman is a full-time writer and editor. His novel in stories, Tracks, was published by Atticus Books summer 2011. He’s also the author of the childrens' book, Flightless Goose. Eric's work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, Pedestal Magazine, Writers Weekly, The Potomac, Barrelhouse, JMWW, Scribble, Slow Trains, and New Lines from the Old Line State: An Anthology of Maryland Writers, among others. His second novel, Womb, is currently with his agent. Visit Eric on Facebook, Twitter, and at his literary blog, Writeful. Learn about his latest work, Tracks, at www.TracksNovel.com.

Alex Kudera’s debut novel, Fight for Your Long Day, won the 2011 Independent Publisher’s Gold Medal for Best Fiction from the Mid-Atlantic Region. It is an original academic tragicomedy told consistently from the perspective of the adjunct instructor, and reviews and interviews can be found online at Inside Higher Ed, Academe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other locations. In 2012, Atticus Review is running Nathan Holic's graphic-novel interpretation of Fight for Your Long Day in monthly installments. Many of Kudera’s stories survive in slush piles across the continent or huddled together in unheated North Philly storage space, but The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity is available as a 99-cent single wherever e-books are downloaded. Alex received his masters in creative writing from Temple University and currently teaches writing and literature at Clemson University in South Carolina.

The Rag seeks the true grit of the literary world. Our writers never pull their punches; the results are unfiltered and sometimes disquieting, but this is contemporary literature--always fresh, always relevant. The way people are reading literature is changing. E-readers are rapidly replacing the demand for print, and some fear that a sinking print market will ultimately drown the future of contemporary literature in its undertow. We disagree. We see electronic publishing as an opportunity; it allows us to turn back time to an era of affordable distribution and open competition, one we believe will aid in putting the literary magazine back into the entertainment market. We view the changing market as a challenge, and we’re rising to the demands of literary consumers by bringing a print aesthetic to the digital world. Our readers are enjoying some of the best writing on the market, but on the screens of their Kindles, iPads, Smart Phones, and PCs. We invite you to join in experiencing the future of contemporary literature. We invite you to join The Rag.