Fall, 1996

"This is the time for radical re-assessment."

Subscribers to The Disability Rag read those words from Advocado Press President Gerry Gordon Brown just a few months ago. They were in a letter mailed with the last Disability Rag & ReSource this past summer. That letter told readers that there would be a brief time when The Rag would not be published.

But the letter also hinted of a "possible new direction," an exciting rebirth, that might happen sometime soon. And now ...

That time has come!

The Ragged Edge Magazine is being born. I've come on board to help start this new magazine, just like I started The Disability Rag back in 1980. To encourage Charter Subscribers to this new publication, we're offering for a short time an incredibly low rate -- and we're making this special rate, originally reserved only for subscribers to The Disability Rag, to the entire online community!

The Ragged Edge Magazine will publish the best in today's cutting-edge writing and thinking about the "ragged edge" issues we all confront as we deal with disability in America: The medicalization of independent living. Personal assistance. Rights and access. Genetic discrimination. Why is our nation fascinated with Dr. Death, and does that have anything to do with us? Is the ADA going to make a difference in our lives? Will cyberspace free us at last?

Like our best-selling anthology of articles from the first fifteen years of The Disability Rag, the Ragged Edge Magazine will pull no punches. You'll read your favorites here ... the very best writers from The Disability Rag days, new voices speaking out about disability culture and lives, voices that are loud on the national stage already, and voices that have just begun to speak. You'll get the best art, the newest cutting-edge thinking. Our fiction and poetry sections will give you a shot of disability culture you'll find nowhere else. You'll find a magazine full of humor, style, cool ... and the insights you used to love from The Rag. All this -- and more, as the Ragged Edge Magazine grows and expands.

You, as a Charter Subscriber, will be adding your voice; helping us grow and expand, telling this nation what it's like to live with disability today. I want you -- and your voice -- added to ours.

"Reading The Ragged Edge," said author Nancy Mairs, "is like sitting in on a vigorous, sometimes funny, and often irreverent roundtable discussion of the issues that most concern all humanity, disabled and nondisabled, whether they admit it or not. " The new Ragged Edge Magazine will make us laugh -- maybe cry, too. It will let us share the disability experience in America today.

In our Premiere Issue . . .

• Christopher Reeve as disability icon
• "My personal FDR"-- from the forthcoming Gimp Mystique
• Those Ol' Kevorkian Blues

Some of our new departments . . .

• D. R. Nation
• ADA Watch 'n' Wait
• Crips on Parade
• The Cure Doctors

So when's this all going to happen?
How???

"How can The Advocado Press do this?" You ask. "Hadn't they run out of money? Didn't they have bills to pay off?" Yes, all that's true. But this summer saw big changes for The Advocado Press -- a lot of thinking and planning. Technological changes have come to the magazine industry. Operations that required much work in the past can be done more quickly and more efficiently. By taking a hard look at these operations and by planning to make the most of this new technology, The Press streamlined operations, cut costs and found a way to offer readers an exciting new alternative to the old Disability Rag -- a what could be a very attractive cost to you!!

We are offering readers a one-time-only offer: Subscribe for 6 issues as a Charter Subscriber for the low rate of $15 -- a real price rollback. This can only be done with this special offer, and only for a limited time. But you must act immediately! This is a one-time-only offer available only to subscribers to The Disability Rag, and, now, to any interested readers through this Web site! During this special Introductory Period, you'll receive your Charter Subscription to the Ragged Edge Magazine at an incredibly low price! We can only make this offer for a limited time.

Respond to this one-time offer TODAY and you will get another whole year -- that's 6 big issues -- at the one time low price of $15 -- save 50% off the newsstand price! The only way you can "lock in" this one-time-only low Introductory Rate is by printing out the form below (or copying the information it contains) and mailing it to us at P.O. Box 145, Louisville, KY 40201, with your check or money order for $15 (or $27 for 2 years -- even more savings!). Sorry, but at this low price we cannot bill you; you must enclose payment.

Send in the form below with your check or money order in the enclosed envelope. DUE TO THIS LOW PRICE, we cannot honor purchase orders -- you must send your subscription by U.S. Mail with payment enclosed to qualify for this special rate!

Welcome to The Ragged Edge! It's the Edge we'll all get to, sooner or later. Welcome to the community of readers and writers who are changing the world with their ideas, their fun, their beliefs ... living on The Ragged Edge!

Best,

Mary Johnson, for Ragged Edge Magazine

P. S. DUE TO THIS LOW PRICE, we cannot bill you -- you must enclose payment to receive this special rate! ACT TODAY!!

PRINT AND MAIL THIS FORM Yes! I want to be a Charter Subscriber to The Ragged Edge Name: ___________________________________ Address: ________________________________ City: _____________ State: ___ ZIP: _____ Telephone: ___________ Fax: _____________ E-Mail: _________________________________ Enclosed is my $15 for 6 issues $27 for 12 issues - 1 issue free! To speed your start-up effort, I'd like to include a tax-deductible donation of $____. Mail this form with check payable to: The Advocado Press. Mail to The Advocado Press, Box 145, Louisville KY 40201. Payment MUST ACCOMPANY THIS ORDER to qualify for this low price. We cannot bill you.

While you're surfing on the Web, check out these other disability-rights links!