Finding Meaning, Making Sense

"The more you're convinced you've uncovered the truth, the more likely it is you've missed something important."

With over five decades of reporting, journalist/author Rod Raglin, has turned to fiction and poetry to address truths that we're unwilling or unable to consider. In Finding Meaning, Making Sense, society's current polarization mindset is abandoned, and the reader is presented with different perspectives that are both challenging and enlightening.

With the immediacy of short fiction and the introspection of poetry, the 27 poems and 25 short stories included in this anthology provide insight and reflection on relationships and contemporary issues .

Separated into four sections, the themes include:

Relationships
Rewarding, devastating, always complicated, stories and poems about the crux of life. Nine poems and five stories including, THE PARTY YOU WISH TO REACH. Jayce and Nance are from a dysfunctional family. Can the skills they learned that helped them survive childhood be used to achieve success as adults?

The Zeitgeist of Our Times:
Politics and protest, love and lifestyles, stories and poems that address controversial social and personal dilemmas with new perspective. Seven poems and five stories including, BROTHERS. A personal tragedy just before a crucial vote, makes an aspiring politician question his decision-and his ambition.

The Chronicles of Arni - an Old Man in Modern Times
Food insecurity, corporate greed, diminishing influence, ageism, declining health, loss, grief - stories and poems about aging in challenging times. Five poems and four stories including, BETTER THE DEATH YOU CHOOSE. Is death a better choice than a long and frightening decline in the care of strangers?

The Environment
Stories about hope and horror, action and alternatives. Three poems and four stories including, THE LEAST OF LIGHT. Materialism, stress, greed, dead trees and turkeys. Is it time to rethink Christmas?

Horror/Fantasy/Speculative
Stories about hikes into hell, an experiment gone very bad, and a relationship that's worse than death-and longer. Seven stories including, CRIPTIC MESSAGES. Someone or something is urgently requesting Ernie to attend a meeting-one he knows nothing about.

Thoughtful, honest, and unforgettable, this collection reminds the reader that sometimes the hardest thing to find isn't the answer-it's the courage to ask the question.