Rod Raglin's Blog

Green Flash Fiction competition – £300 prize for the winning story plus £100 prize for 7 runners up. Deadline 27th August 2025.

Green Stories is running a flash fiction competition for stories under 500 words on the theme of ‘epiphanies’, the transformative realisation that inspires behaviours with positive environmental implications.

No entry fee, but all entrants must purchase at least one book from the Green Stories project as a guide to competition criteria (entertaining fiction that showcases green solutions). Green Stories books must be purchased from https://habitatpress.com/shop/.between 1st June 2025 and 28th Aug. 2025.

For more details including on how to submit visit https://www.greenstories.org.uk/flash-fiction…/

#flashfictioncompetition#GreenStories#environmentalfiction#thrutopia @habitatpress

In the not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Sam and his family live in NewBeck, a small, arid, town on the edge of nowhere in an undisclosed country.

The population of Newbeck as well as the rest of the country survive primarily on meagre crops raised on these tiny allotments. Each spring, the scientists at Green Cultivation Corporation, a mega-agri-conglomerate that also supplies soil and fertilizer, decide what crops would be best for each area that year. Then they bring four selections for people to buy and for some reason, the citizens have been conditioned into believing these crops are the only choices they have.

Every year, the citizens worry whether they’ll be able to afford enough soil, how much the extra fertiliser will cost and if it’s worth it, whether they’ll be able to buy all four of that year’s crop seeds, will the seeds germinate and thrive and if they do will the plants be labour intensive. On occasion, when crops have failed near famine conditions have prevailed

One afternoon, while Sam’s dutifully weeding the family’s government garden allotment, he notices a girl about his age ride into town on a rusty bicycle. He’s curious, she’s forward, and they strike up a conversation about farming and school. Then she leaves the way she came.

“There were no buildings or other roads where she was heading. So where the hell did the strange girl come from?”

Where this strange girl came from and is heading back to is just a forty-minute bicycle ride from town, a waterhole, fed by a stream with a waterfall.  Once she arrives, she ducks behind a waterfall, navigates through a labyrinth of caves until she emerges “into Home Valley… a multitude of fields and gardens spread out before her in all their colourful variety.”

Home Valley is populated by her extended family who live there in seclusion and fear.  Years earlier “strangers had swarmed the valley” and plundered their crops and destroyed most of the planting. In response to the raid, the patriarch had blocked the road into the valley and forbid any family members from leaving it. Only every couple of months when supplies are needed, does he leave the sanctuary and venture into town – alone.

Avril’s visit has piqued her curiosity. She wants to know more about the town’s people, especially Sam.

This curiosity and her attraction to Sam are the catalyst that gradually help them as individuals and the groups they’re associated with to go from fear and mistrust to care and cooperation. The knowledge shared by Avril’s family results in better crops and provides the motivation for the Townids to stand up against the agricultural megacorporation and take control of their own destiny – and gardens.

Habitat Press, the publishers, present Dirt as a “dystopian eco-romance for young adults (ten to 18 years old). Having read the book, three questions immediately arise; has author Laura Baggaley (and the publisher) underestimated the sophistication of their readers, has the publisher made a mistake and should the book have been marketed as Middle Grade fiction (readers aged 8-12), or, is this simply a case of weak craft?

Beginning with inciting incident, Sam’s and Avril’s personal relationship lacks intensity. At an age (fifteen years old) when physical attractiveness is perhaps the most important attribute, there isn’t one descriptive passage about the main characters. The reader doesn’t know whether they’re tall or petite, dark or fair, handsome or beautiful. The author does mention that Avril “raised her pale eyebrows”, but incredibly doesn’t say the colour of the eyes beneath them.

Neither is there a hint of sexual attraction at a time in life when hormones are raging – which is one of the reasons I wondered if the story should be categorized for a younger reader.

If characterization is thin for the two protagonists, it’s two-dimensional for the supporting characters. 

Factoring in that Sam and Avril are star-crossed lovers in a Shakespearean way, the plot unfolds like any other genre romance–which means no surprises. In this case, an unoriginal plot is not a liability, because understanding the narrative is difficult enough.

Though an historical info dump at the beginning is not the way to start a story, the lack of context is confusing. I imagine even young readers would be asking:

– How did the entire population of this country come under the control of Climate Cult when “Spain and France and Italy and the Netherlands – and probably further afield, their farmers have adapted successfully to global heating. They’ve adopted sustainable agricultural practices, maximised production and established food security policies.”?

– Why hasn’t the government adopted these same policies?

– A little further on, when Avril describes the raid on her valley, why didn’t the family inform the authorities rather than hide? Is there no law and order in this country?

– How can the valley stay hidden – an oasis in a desert, even as dirigibles are flying overhead?

– How come the entire country appears to be populated only by people of European (white) ancestry?

– Then, as the story unfolds, the reader finds out that ClimateCult is actually breaking the law, like this is some kind of epiphany. “So even if the contract did say we have to use their seeds and their seeds only, it wouldn’t stand up in court.” Did the residents just wake up and discover they have access to courts. This is incredulous – they’re living this way because they never read the small print?

– How come no one has a cellphone? The lack of any mention of digital technology is glaring – and unexplained.

After a lackluster beginning, the story slows even further with the middle chapters getting bogged down in the reconciliation between the two groups and the conveying of gardening information. Had the green knowledge been experimental or even innovative it may have proved interesting, but as it was, the information about composting and crop rotation has been practiced by most backyard gardeners everywhere, forever. Even if it had somehow been lost, it could easily be retrieved by anyone with access to the internet – like Sam’s mother “at the architects’ office where she worked in project planning” or his Dad, at “the solar construction factory in the next town.”

The climax between the citizens and the ClimateCult goons is the bridge too far in terms of incredulity. One would imagine the way ClimateCult has kept the citizens in line would have included violence. After all, not everyone is compliant or complicit. To think three AgriCarriers accompanied by 50 truncheon wielding goons with orders “to remove the unauthorized soil and crops” would be deterred by two kids with their bikes across the road supersedes the suspension of disbelief. The security guards wouldn’t have to kill Sam and Avril, just gently, albeit forcibly, move them out of the way (like cops do everywhere, all the time) – then destroy the gardens as ordered by their CEO. With the gardens destroyed and ClimateCult’s primacy reaffirmed, the company could let their corporate lawyers haggle with government officials over the legality of it – while business continued as usual. This type of fait accompli happens all the time, especially in authoritarian regimes.

These details don’t need to be revealed to middle aged or even young adult readers, though it is never a good idea to underestimate the intelligence of your audience, at the very least so as not to appear elitist. Narratives tend to flow smoother if they’re embedded in solid research. Besides, isn’t this one of the reasons we write, to find out how stuff works, how people think?

Even for dystopian fiction, Dirt has too many unexplained plot holes. It’s like the author created a flawed society to accommodate her green solutions. Solutions that, though widely used today, aren’t mitigating the existential threat of global warming. Why does she think they would in the future when the damage has become even more irreversible?

Dirt is available to purchase at https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0F7MVLBFS?ref=KC_GS_GB_CA

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Last year I submitted a story to StreetLit Magazine (which they rejected) and somewhere in the process they must have captured my email address. That would explain the recent email I received from them pleading for support.

It began by saying how “ephemeral” independent literary magazines are and how so many promising ones “take a year or two and they go bust.” This is exactly the situation StreetLit finds itself in, as “submissions decline, and with it, the income that sustains the myriad fees associated with running an independent litmag.”

They never address why submissions have declined, that might come close to taking some creative responsibility, only that they do – like leaves fall from the trees in autumn, I suppose.

However, reading between the lines of their narrative it’s not difficult to detect an attitude that is pervasive among many new lit mag publishers that almost guarantees their failure.

The attitude is one of elitism. The idea that they are doing the literary world, including all us writers who contribute our work for nothing, and in the case of StreetLit, get charged $5 to have it read, a great favour. They are making a huge sacrifice for which we should not only donate or work, but also donate our cash.  

In their begging letter, they blame their ineptitude on us writers, stating we “complain about reading fees but then they also complain about the lack of cool independent litmags”.

I just read Duotrope’s “Weekly wire” which list 61 cool lit mags, while an “Advanced Search for Publishers of Poetry” on the same site shows no less than 686 listings. Where is the “lack of cool independent litmags” they say we’re so concerned about?

They whine about the cost of Submittable, the online platform that streamlines workflows, even while other (more successful) publications choose to use Google forms, or regular email at no cost.

Apparently, they don’t realize that writers also have expenses – Duotrope, writing software, computer hardware and programs, courses, books, etc, and none of us are asking them to chip in to defer our expenses. It’s not just publishers for whom it’s a labour of love.

They’re so broke, they can’t even buy the team of volunteers (sob) “a coffee once in a while.“

“We are not The Paris Review,” they lament. “We do not gain venture capital investment, sponsorships, advertisement fees, nothing.”

Why not? I mean, if it’s good enough for The Paris Review why not StreetLit?

There are several ways a literary magazine can generate revenue including soliciting advertising. Businesses that might be interested include writing software like ProWritingAid, editors, book marketers, hybrid publishers, writing programs and retreats. There might also be an opportunity for government and cultural grants, maybe even corporate sponsorships.

Of course, someone would have to prepare a proposal and pitch them and it’s far easier just to charge writers: basic $5; expedited response $10; 24-hour response $24; and feedback $30. All the while rejecting probably 90% of them.

“No-one is holding a gun to your head,” they write. “Reply ‘unsubscribe’ and we’ll fall off the face of the planet. You don’t even have to read this. It’s all optional.”

Well, I read this, and I understand “it’s all optional”, and I’ve decided to hit unsubscribe.

My article, Thrutopian Fictions: Ways to a Better Future?, accompanied by one of my photographs have been published in the ClimateCultures blog.

Thrutopian is an emerging subgenre of environmental fiction that is neither dystopian nor utopian but attempts to tell stories that are rooted in plausible solutions to the climate crisis. My article asks if these plausible solutions address one of the real challenges – our reluctance to make the sacrifices necessary for a better future?

Read the full article at https://climatecultures.net/challenges-of-creative-engagement/thrutopian-fictions-ways-to-a-better-future/

ClimateCultures is an online space for creative minds to share responses to our ecological and climate predicaments. Launched in 2017, it’s comprised of a growing network of artists, researchers and curators across the UK and around the world working across many practices, disciplines and spaces.

#thrutopianfiction #environmentalfiction #climatecrisis @climatecultures #globalwarmingMy article, Thrutopian Fictions: Ways to a Better Future?, accompanied by one of my photographs have been published in the ClimateCultures blog.

Thrutopian is an emerging subgenre of environmental fiction that is neither dystopian nor utopian but attempts to tell stories that are rooted in plausible solutions to the climate crisis. My article asks if these plausible solutions address one of the real challenges – our reluctance to make the sacrifices necessary for a better future?

Read the full article at https://climatecultures.net/challenges-of-creative-engagement/thrutopian-fictions-ways-to-a-better-future/

ClimateCultures is an online space for creative minds to share responses to our ecological and climate predicaments. Launched in 2017, it’s comprised of a growing network of artists, researchers and curators across the UK and around the world working across many practices, disciplines and spaces.

#thrutopianfiction #environmentalfiction #climatecrisis @climatecultures #globalwarming

#Free Ebook! Summer Reading Sale Continues. Until July 27, FOREST-Love, Loss, Legend, the prequel to The Thin White Line is FREE with 5 other full-length novels deeply discounted.  Download your copies now at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU

Matthew and Raminder are young, idealistic and in love.

As soon as they can they plan to leave behind the small town and small minds of Pitt Landing. They will embrace life and experience the world, maybe even change it.

Man plans, God laughs. Raminder’s father has a stroke and her commitment to her family means she must postpone her plans and stay in Pitt Lake. It’s just the opposite for Matt. A family tragedy leaves irreconcilable differences between him and his father and forces him to leave.

They promise to reunite, but life happens.

Twelve years later, Matt is an acclaimed war correspondent. He’s seen it all and it’s left him with post-traumatic stress, a gastric ulcer, and an enlarged liver. He’s never been back to Pitt Landing though the memory of Raminder and their love has more than once kept him sane.

He’s at his desk in the newsroom, recuperating from his last assignment and current hangover and reading a letter from his father, the first contact they’ve had in over a decade. It talks about a legendary lost gold mine, a map leading to it, and proof in a safety deposit box back in Pitt Lake. He’s sent it to Matt in case something happens to him and cautions his son to keep it a secret.

Matt is about to dismiss the letter when the telephone rings. It’s Raminder telling him his father has disappeared somewhere in the wilderness that surrounds Pitt Lake.

Lost gold, lost love and lost hope compels Matt to return home to Pitt Landing, a dying town on the edge of the rainforest on the west coast of Canada. The forest is waiting.

HONEST REVIEWS AND RATINGS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED

My photograph, Stranger at the Bus Stop, has been published in the online literature and art magazine, New Feathers Summer 2025 Anthology.

At New Feathers, they believe “art is a means of exploration and understanding, a way to play, to discover, and to communicate ideas and perceptions relevant to matters of the day (and beyond the day).”

View my photo at
https://www.newfeathersanthology.com/10november.html#/

or read the entire Summer 2025 anthology at
https://www.newfeathersanthology.com/newfeathersummer25.html#/

Visit my portfolio To view more of my photographs visit
https://rodraglin.smugmug.com/

@newfeathersanthology #literarymagazine #photography

The Mattie Saunders Series, The Rocker and the Bird Girl, and Cold-Blooded, Books 1 & 2 are FREE until July 20, 2025, with Books 3 thru 5 in the series deeply discounted. Download your copies now at https://amzn.to/44BPRBg

Cold-Blooded

The parking lot of The Reptile Refuge Centre where Liz volunteered was crowded with police vehicles. She didn’t pull in to see what had happened though she had good idea and getting involved it was a bad idea. She needed to ditch The Reptile Refuge’s van and disappear, but there was a problem.

What to do with six Ball Pythons, three Carpet Boas, a Corn Snake, four Geckos, a Bearded Dragon, a four foot long, unruly Black Throated Monitor, two Red-Eared Slider Turtles, Spots, the forty pound Leopard Tortoise and Iggy, her Iguana? They’d all accompanied her to the presentation at an elementary school and now were in the back of the vehicle.

An anonymous call to the SPCA was not an option. They couldn’t even find homes for all the cats and dogs they took in, and they were cute and cuddly. Her herps would likely die in the shelter or be euthanized.

These animals depended on her, some she’d looked after for nearly two years, a few she’d nursed back from the brink of death. You spend that long with a something, even a snake or a lizard and, well, you get to know them. You get attached.

She couldn’t abandon them.

She knew her old high school friend, Mattie Saunders, had a sanctuary for exotic birds. Birds? Reptiles? Not that much difference. At least it would be better than taking all them home to the tiny basement suite she lived in.

Cold-Blooded, Book 2 in The Mattie Saunders Series has Mattie struggling with her relationship with rockstar Bodine, the challenges of education and career all the while addressing the issues of the exploitation of reptiles as exotic pet.

Romance and action combine with environmental issues for an exciting exploration of contemporary culture.

HONEST REVIEWS AND RATINGS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED

#romance #action #rockstarromance #exoticbirds #birdrescue #endanderedspecies #reptiles #herps #environment #conservation #amreading #readingcommunity #birdlovers

The Rocker and the Bird Girl, Book 1 in the Mattie Saunders Series, is FREE until July 20, 2025, with Books 2 thru 5 in the series deeply discounted. Download your copy now at

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071W8VJBP?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_0&storeType=ebooks&qid=1752130424&sr=8-1

Meet Mattie Saunders,,,

…an independent, determined, outspoken young woman with a social conscience and a bad attitude. Mattie loves birds and has devoted her short life to the rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing of exotic one’s people buy as pets and then abandon.

The Saunders Exotic Bird Sanctuary is out of money and in an effort to raise some so her birds won’t be homeless yet again, Mattie reaches out to Bodine, the lead guitarist of the bad-boy rock band Seditious. She’s learned he has a macaw as a pet and since it’s obvious he’s wealthy she hopes he’ll be sympathetic and use some of the money he now spends on his hedonistic lifestyle to help these precious, beautiful creatures. They’re hardly birds of a feather, but Mattie’s not about to kill the goose if it promises a golden egg.

Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll have taken their toll on Bodine, lead guitarist and songwriter for Seditious, the chart-topping, outrageous rock band. He’s just playing the part until something better comes along. The problem is what’s better than being a rich and famous rock idol? Certainly not helping some overzealous young woman save exotic birds, even if his best friend is a Blue and Gold Macaw.

Romance and action combine with environmental issues for an exciting exploration of contemporary culture.

HONEST REVIEWS AND RATINGS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED

#romance #action #rockstarromance #exoticbirds #birdrescue #endanderedspecies #environment #conservation #amreading #readingcommunity #birdlovers

Because my 14 novels mirror societal issues and current events, it’s not surprising that some of them, or at least parts of some of them, are, well, prophetic. 

For example, my latest novel, The Thin White Line – Culture War with Deadly Consequences, self-published January 1 of this year, begins with two Canadian Armed Force reservists offloading an illegal shipment of small arms and munitions from a boxcar in the middle of the night.

Further into the story, the reader learns that these arms are to be used in a domestic terrorist attack that is designed to destabilize the federal government allowing an ultra nationalistic movement led by a charismatic retired Canadian Armed Forces colonel to take power.

Though this is a fictional scenario, my research into extremist elements within the CAF indicated it was not improbable.

So, when on July 8, 2025, I saw the story by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) with the headline, “RCMP charges military members allegedly plotting to form militia and seize land”, I was surprised, but not gobsmacked.

The federal police force, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), has charged four men, including two active members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), with being part of an extremist plot that allegedly involved creating an anti-government militia with a massive trove of weapons.

“The three accused were planning to create anti-government militia. To achieve this, they took part in military-style training, as well as shooting, ambush, survival and navigation exercises,” the RCMP said.

Searches in the Quebec City area, led to the seizure of 16 explosive devices, 83 firearms and accessories, approximately 11,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibres, nearly 130 magazines and four pairs of night-vision goggles (see the picture within the article). The RCMP said some of the seized items were military equipment, but wouldn’t confirm if that included weapons.

The number of Canadian military members belonging to extremist groups is growing and it’s getting harder to detect them, says a new report looking at racism and discrimination in Canada’s armed forces.

The CAF have been under pressure to better handle soldiers drawn to hateful views and extremism. A 2022 report* from the military’s advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination found widespread problems in the military, including the presence of white supremacists and those inspired by ideologically motivated violent extremism.

Another example of life imitating art? I hope not.

*Read the report here

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/mnd-advisory-panel-systemic-racism-discrimination-final-report-jan-2022/part-i-systemic-racism.html

The Thin White Line – Culture War with Deadly Consequences, a racially charge novel of political suspense, domestic terrorism and murder is available at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU

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#FreeEbook! The Rocker and the Bird Girl, Book 1 in the Mattie Saunders Series, is FREE until July 14, 2025, with Books 2 thru 5 in the series deeply discounted. Download your copy now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088NH8S6K?binding=kindle_edition&ref_=saga_dp_bnx_dsk_sdp&qid=1752130424&sr=8-1

Meet Mattie Saunders,,,

…an independent, determined, outspoken young woman with a social conscience and a bad attitude. Mattie loves birds and has devoted her short life to the rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing of exotic one’s people buy as pets and then abandon.

The Saunders Exotic Bird Sanctuary is out of money and in an effort to raise some so her birds won’t be homeless yet again, Mattie reaches out to Bodine, the lead guitarist of the bad-boy rock band Seditious. She’s learned he has a macaw as a pet and since it’s obvious he’s wealthy she hopes he’ll be sympathetic and use some of the money he now spends on his hedonistic lifestyle to help these precious, beautiful creatures. They’re hardly birds of a feather, but Mattie’s not about to kill the goose if it promises a golden egg.

Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll have taken their toll on Bodine, lead guitarist and songwriter for Seditious, the chart-topping, outrageous rock band. He’s just playing the part until something better comes along. The problem is what’s better than being a rich and famous rock idol? Certainly not helping some overzealous young woman save exotic birds, even if his best friend is a Blue and Gold Macaw.

Romance and action combine with environmental issues for an exciting exploration of contemporary culture.

#romance #action #rockstarromance #exoticbirds #birdrescue #endanderedspecies #environment #conservation #amreading #readingcommunity #birdlovers