The Rose & Thorn literary magazine is a delight to view and read.

The zine offers a wide range of genres: literary, romance, romantic fantasy, sf/fantasy, and poetry as well as non-fiction topics: author interviews, humor, essays, opinion/perspective and writing tips. Submissions are limited to 2000 words.

Navigation of the Rose & Thorn is very simple. Most pages feature links at the bottom of the screen while the index pages have a menu bar on the left. This does require the viewer to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the links, but the stories kept my interest well enough that I found myself at the bottom quicker than I expected.

With this e-zine we also go back to my favorite combination of a cream background with a simplistic black font. I find this combination easy to read even when I've been on the Internet for hours, researching and reading. This does not imply boring. The site is tastefully designed and the artwork that accompanies many of the stories is stunning.

The e-zine is currently closed to submissions for their summer hiatus. They will reopen in September. While they are non-paying at this time, they do offer contributors' links back to their own sites as well as an email link. Reply time for submissions is two to four weeks for prose, slightly longer for poetry due to the large volume of submissions.

Jasmin Randick, publisher and managing editor took the time to answer a few questions for me. While most of the information I wanted was easily available on the site, I did ask a few, more in-depth questions.

FF: How long are accepted submissions archived on the site? Can the author request that these be removed after a certain amount of time?

R&T: We don't have a set length of time in which we archive past works featured on The Rose & Thorn. As long as there is space, we make past stories and poems available to our readers.

Since the author does retain all rights to their work, they may request their work be removed at any time.

FF: The Rose & Thorn reserves the right to edit submissions however; they have a very writer friendly policy about that policy.

R&T: Our editors work with contributing authors to bring a story or essay into publishable form, so there's a lot of give and take when editing a submission. We're not hard nosed about anything we edit. We allow the author room to rewrite where we think it's needed and give them the opportunity to proof everything before it goes online. We're proud of our editors not just in their skill at editing, but in their ability to work side by side with contributing authors to bring a piece to it's most polished form.

FF: Do you have any comments you would like to make regarding The Rose & Thorn's mission or goals?

R&T: We love what we do! The Rose & Thorn is proud to showcase emerging and established writers to a discerning Internet audience. Our readership spans the globe, from Europe to Australia, from India to our own backyard in the United States. In each issue, short fiction, poetry and other literary articles reflect the diversity and brilliance of authors who have something to say, and find unprecedented, imaginative ways in which to say it. In addition, we are open to new ideas and concepts from visitors and participants to this site.

The e-zine fully earns a * * * * 1/2 stars rating.
It's non-paying status costs it 1/2 a star.

Visit The Rose & Thorn at at http://members.aol.com/Raven763/index.html