On this day, 25 years ago, the first issue of moocat.net was released: 13 essays, travelogs, and poems, all but one, by me.
By the seventh issue, the share of non-me contributors had grown to 50%, and of the (unprecedented) 24 pieces in this issue, more than 90% are from creators other than me. And what a Feast of Talent!
The theme for essays in this issue is “Starving the Beast: The tension between the need to remain connected to the world online and the desire to stop ‘feeding the beast’ of extractive social media and tech giants.”
In the old days, I sourced content by writing it myself and by pestering friends and acquaintances to use their work. Twenty-five years later, sophisticated systems are already in place to manage a large number of submissions — from writers and poets the world over! — and to select only the most fitting and the very best. I am very excited about this issue’s very strong collection of writers and artists. A well-deserved shout-out to Duotrope/Duosuma for providing this.
The entries in this issue truly are gentle moos “From Round the Globe”:
- Featuring writers and artists from from Spain, the UK, Barbados, Hungary, India, Japan, Sudan, Sumatra, even a few from the USA!
- Three entirely new travelogs, all written by new contributors.
- Five new essays and 4 new writers, variations on the issue’s theme.
- Three outstanding collections of art from one O.G. art contributor; an award-winning, up-and-coming painter; and a professional photographer with an amazing eye.
- Ten new poems: 3 by an O.G. poet, and 7 from poets new to the mag.
- And finally, 3 new comedy pieces, from one O.G. comedy writer and two brand-new comic voices!
Please enjoy the 25-Year-Anniversary moocat.net relaunch issue!
| Creator | Piece Name(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ESSAYS | ||
| (Starving the Beast) | ||
| Moocat le Meaux | Starving the Beast | Is life without Facebook possible? Should it be? |
| Diana Parrilla | What the Algorithm Gave Me, and What It Took | A conflicted look at modern romance and the addictive digital simulation that produced it. |
| Dira Wiranti | Rice Fields and the Digital Loom | A writer from Sumatra considers connections to digital and physical place. |
| Christopher Morales | The Small Good of Staying Reachable | There is something restful about not knowing what one thinks yet. |
| Pravy Jha | Does It Sit on the Branches for a While? | A truly lovely memoir and meditation on ways of seeing, from an exciting new writer from India. |
| POETRY | ||
| Rodger Kamenetz | Three Prose Poems by Rodger Kamenetz | Delighted to present three new prose poems by the celebrated poet and author. |
| Jonathan Chibuike Ukah | Faces of London | A rollicking, impressionistic fugue of a morning London commute. |
| Josh Pearce | The Boss | Workplace pulse comes from whose bilge-pump heart, / whose office consumes my thoughts. |
| Lorraine Schein | Two Poems by Lorraine Schein | I was sleeping when a poem crept onto my pillow / and whispered in my ear, “Write me...” |
| Carol Barrett | June 21, 2025 | The sun spoons into dark soil. / The sun, eclipsed behind a terrified cloud. |
| Ann Youmans | Two Poems by Ann Youmans | The prickle of winter on my skin / followed by the clatter of snow shovels, / quick inhales of pointy air |
| TRAVELOGS | ||
| Robert Witmer | The Road Before Me | “Back in the middle 1970s ... the old Everest Base Camp at Gorak Shep, one could walk for days meeting only the local people.” |
| Zary Fekete | Singapore Dawn | A traveler awakens to find an unforgettable scene in early morning Singapore. |
| Chandreyee Chakraborty | The Packing of Small Things | Looking at it, I cannot help but think time must move differently for water. |
| COMEDY | ||
| Max Burbank | Orange Crush | A comic memoir from the depth of the Covid era, from an O.G. contributor’s My Covid Diary series. |
| Michael Fowler | Show Your Neanderthal Pride, People! | Announcing a New Day of Remembrance for a amall percentage of all of us. |
| M.D. Smith IV | The Most Inconvenient Midnight Ride in History | In honor of America’s 250th: Revere’s revered ride... possibly. |
| ART | ||
| Mahmoud Elmardi | Paintings, by Mahmoud Elmardi | “... there is no distinction between my brush and my pen, as both serve to delve into the depths of the human psyche.” |
| Leslie St. John | This Is My Island In The Sun... | “On an island just 166 square miles... it might be hard to believe there are still wild places. But they exist...” |
| John Guillory | Drawings and Paintings, by John Guillory | “To me, a drawing feels like an old hand-written letter that conveys a lost intimate understanding of an event, a person, a scene.” |