It’s always exciting to find a new magazine willing to brave the tumultuous waters of literary fiction. Almost as exciting, perhaps, as finding readers still willing to set sail on the bouncing ship of literature. Anyway, that’s enough water imagery bullshit. Raw Fiction is what it’s all about — a mixed bag of stories, some artful, some immature, some just plain good reading. Alex Keegan writes a cute story about an English bar-tender and her slow moving relationship with a customer. Dan Wall’s elaborate blending of first person consciousness, memory, guilt and adolescent desire is much more complex; the fact that it is not altogether successful high-lights the risks this new mag is willing to take. By the Hand, Without Heart by Michael O’Neill was the best story in the mag, a drifting flash-back of sentences glittering like razors in the sun. This second issue of Raw Fiction marks it as a definite comer in the litmag scene, and they should be congratulated for their no nonsense approach — no introductions, editorials, pleas for cash or pointless reviews. There’s a nudity to the style of the mag that reflects back both on the authors and the success of this stripped-down effort.
lit-mag / #2, 33 pages / publisher: Oppidan Publications / main creator: Tim Campbell (editor) / $6, six for $24 / Box 4065, Edmonton, AB, T6E 4S8