Click to download Issue Thirteen for your e-reader!

Dear Readers,

“Traveling is a brutality.”

Given that Outside In focuses on travel and journeys, ostensibly regarding them as pleasurable, this quote from Italian poet and novelist Cesare Pavese, might seem like an odd choice for the opening remarks of Issue Thirteen. And yet, I believe there is truth to this statement, especially as Pavese continues: “It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”

When so much is unfamiliar and so little can be claimed as a traveler’s own, the smallest acts of kindness from strangers—that one would take a moment to offer directions as you squint to read your map in the fading afternoon light, to lend a hand as you try to cram your embarrassingly overstuffed backpack into the train’s overhead rack, or even just to offer a warm expression, a look of understanding, a smile—help to balance the scales once again, to remind you of the goodness of those things which are yours— the air you breathe, your sleep and dreams, the memories and moments that you will take home because they have become a part of who you are.

This month, as we debut the new Photostories format, it seems fitting, then, for our first to be “A Smile from a Stranger.” A smile not only often represents the opening of a door, a first tentative welcome to someplace new, but is also universally familiar, even at times when nothing else is. Check out great photos by Elizabeth Titus, Cindy Estelle-Stauffer, Adrian Schulte, Susana Case, Adrian Mangiuca, Oliver Gray, and Brandi Dawn Henderson that provide snippets of their journeys across India, Nicaragua, China, Tennessee, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Swaziland, through the smiles of the strangers who brightened them. Each month we will accept photos on a new theme, allowing us to share more individual moments or snapshots into the journeys of our contributors. The theme for June is “What I Brought Back” and will focus on the more tangible side of travel—the memories evoked through the objects we choose to bring home.

Check out great work by our contributors in other genres this month, including nonfiction pieces by Darla Reed on dancing (literally) her way into a new culture and from Adrian Mangiuca, who introduces us to Patty (an eighty-something year old woman working at a truck stop Pizza Hut), along with a pair of pieces from a mother-daughter duo. Margaret Elysia Garcia writes about how a love for writing was passed down from her mother and how she now sees the same love developing in her daughter, Paloma Garcia-Couoh, who is just eight years old. We are proud to have included Paloma’s first published poem along with illustrations. Shenan Prestwich‘s short fiction elicits breathtaking images of horses in the sea, and Edward Perlman‘s trenchant poem Cartagena is the perfect introduction to this month’s remarkable poetry collection. And, as always, remember to take a moment (as that is all they require) to appreciate our microjourneys.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we have. As always, keep journeying, keep writing, and keep submitting!

Vicki Valosik
Photostories Editor

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Click here to download a .pdf version of Issue Twelve for use with your e-reader!

Dearest Readers,

In honor of National Poetry Month, Joseph Epstein had this to say in this month’s The Wall Street Journal about old versus new poetry: “But nearly all the poetry written since the years those poets wrote doesn’t register, resonate, ring, do any of the elevating things that poetry is supposed to, and once indeed did, do.” He continues with a declaration that “otherwise the poetry game is over, kaput, fini, time, gentlemen, time.”

Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I have to disagree with Joseph Epstein’s pronouncement of the death of poetry. When I was a senior in college, I took what would prove to be the most influential class of my entire education: Introduction to Poetry, taught by Professor Fred Pollack. During that class I learned that all of the ideas I expressed in pages and pages of fiction could be expressed in just a few lines, with the story alive in the white space of what was not said. I learned to be precise with my language; to make every line honest; to appreciate all of the tools, metaphors and alliteration and rhythms that would enrich not only my poetry but my prose and nonfiction forever. Most of all, I learned that great poetry was alive in university classrooms, that it thrived in the scribbled notebooks of writers both published and private, that it had transformed over the years since T. S. Eliot but retained all of its potential for truth and beauty.

I’m not saying every modern poem is a great work of art; there is a lot of bad poetry out there, but there has always been a lot of bad poetry out there! For those poets who live and breathe poetry, who sit by their fireplaces with poets both living and dead as their companions, who keep writing despite how many critics and writers declare their passion a dead one, I say this: keep writing. And keep reading other poets, like the men and women in this issue of Outside In, who can take the reader to Kiev, Ukraine and Huancayo, Peru like Mary Ellen Dingley, or Piazza dei Miracoli like Uche Ogbuji, and can make the reader taste the food and feel the sun on his or her skin in just a few lines. Keep submitting to our magazine, so that we can work to keep poetry alive.

Speaking of submissions, this month marks a shift in our Photostories category to include more snapshots of your journeys. Starting in the May issue, we will take submissions of individual photos related to one theme; May’s theme is A Smile from a Stranger, a chance to remember a stranger who made your day once, and June’s theme is What I Brought Back, a look at treasured souvenirs. More information about the upcoming themes, photos and captions can be found on the submissions portion of this site.

With Respect for Poets Everywhere,

Kelly Jacobson
Poetry Editor
Outside In Literary & Travel Magazine

Click on the picture to download a .pdf version of Issue Eleven!

(Really, you can now download our collection and take it all around!)

Editor’s Note

I have been going through a phase lately that involves a lot of sitting on my couch looking at old photos of myself on foreign trains, watching films I made of my fellow Greyhound bus passengers, and wondering how someone so outgoing just a year ago could suddenly be satisfied with the weekly social interaction that comes from visiting Burger 101 for Bacon Wednesday.

The answer, I think, is that life comes in phases, and that we seek substitutions when the situations we find ourselves in alter their offerings. Sometimes, we have the energy and opportunity to chat up the guy, sitting greasily beside us on a cross-country Greyhound, who just got out of prison and now works in a circus. Sometimes, we’re good with a smile from the burger guy. Each kind of being can serve us differently, but for now, I’d like to focus on some of the benefits of unabashed openness.

My current substitute for social curiosity, I suppose, is that the editors of Outside In and I ask for stories in a formal way; this month, we have received a remarkable collection of global stories from Colombia, Germany, Japan, China, New Guinea, Greece, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, India, Argentina, and from multiple locations within the United States. Having taken in the thirty-two different experiences shared within the pages of Issue Eleven, I am enriched. From looking at each story alone, and from my own understanding of the narrative of the collection as a whole, I am able to unravel just a bit more in my attempt to get this whole humanity thing sorted.

It is my sincere hope that the stories we share here can offer you an insight or two (or thirty-two) into the ways in which we all connect, but more than that, I hope it will inspire you to act on the inner nudge it might take to ask someone you come upon about him/herself in a more casual way, or to share a bit of your own tale.

Even if you’re not running into the sort of folks who are obviously intriguing, is there not something to be learned from each kind of character we come across? Add a new friend to your routine; no matter how ordinary your life might seem, wouldn’t it be nice to understand a bit more about the girl who makes your daily latte, the bus driver who delivers you on your daily routes, or the guy who brings you Bacon Wednesdays?

Get out there, tigers. Know people.

With Gratitude,
Brandi Dawn Henderson
Editor-in-Chief

“One, two, buckle my shoe.
Three, four, shut the door.
Five, six, pick up sticks.
Seven, eight, lay them straight .
Nine, ten, a big fat hen!”

-Excerpt from a Popular English-language Nursery Rhyme

Welcome, travel pups.

As a result of having made some major changes to the magazine, Issue Ten has been on my mind a lot this month. Several nights in a row recently, head nested firmly in my pillow, I  replayed “Issue Ten, a big fat hen” over and over in my head. I thought it was stupid, until I made a half-sleep correlation that felt far more like a eureka moment than it probably was.

The nursery rhyme itself makes very little sense, but was created to offer children insight into the world of counting. The contents of Outside In might seem just as foreign to some readers, but within each piece, there are underlying lessons into the worlds of Pakistani blood drives, traditions involving Nigerian tombstones, the beauty of  fullness/emptiness left by departed fathers, the importance of shadows, and more.

And if that isn’t a good enough connection, this issue is big and fat. We’re proud to announce that we’ve collected a global audience vast enough to warrant a much-expanded editorial staff. Miriam Vaswani is now managing Fiction, Kelly Ann Jacobson is presiding over Poetry, Vicki Valosik is handling Photostories, and Ope Olum’degun has taken over Microjourneys. Susanna Wickes, who will always and forever be an essential voice of Outside In, has taken a leave of absence in order to consume as many green tea pastries as possible, and to live the stories we share here. I am still greedily consuming all nonfiction submissions. If you’d like more information about our new team, click here.

Over the past year, I have been amazed, month after month, at the lessons I’ve learned by reading and viewing the submissions of our writers and photographers. I submit, with confidence, that this is our best issue yet. Click on Issue Ten on the left of your screen to get started. We hope you’ll leave comments so we can create a more open dialogue on the many kinds of lives we live.

With amazement at how far we’ve come, and how far we can go,

Brandi Dawn Henderson
Senior Editor | Nonfiction Editor

The contents of Issue Nine have us all sorts of excited for a myriad of reasons, but most of all it’s because we have secret mob stories from a reliable source who wishes to use a pseudonym for the time being. I mean, that’s cool, right? We’re also thrilled to share Vicki Valosik’s essay about what could happen if you invite an international student home for Thanksgiving, because it really encompasses the exact urge we hope we’re promoting here: to take a chance on stepping into, or allowing someone else to step into, the inner workings of an outside kind of life.

We’re pleased to offer fiction pieces by Patrice Hutton and Rebecca Harris (Poetry Editor of a great Baltimore-based journal, Seltzer), and speaking of fiction, we are beyond enthusiastic about this big, fat piece of news: Miriam Vaswani is joining the Outside In editorial staff as our new Fiction Editor! Miriam writes fiction, news and analysis for publications in Scotland, India, Canada, England and the US. She’s worked in 3rd sector housing in Scotland, and as a teacher and editor in Russia. She’s from Atlantic Canada, and has spent much of her adult life in Glasgow, with the exception of two years in Moscow. She’s traveled extensively in Asia, particularly her ancestral India. As a writer and traveler Miriam is interested in exploring multiple and original narratives in landscape and society, which subvert received ideas about the world and fuel discourse. She lives in Germany and blogs here. Our pants are pretty much dancing by themselves over this addition to our little editorial family.

In the Nonfiction arena, Jamie Stambaugh has contributed a hilarious essay about the natural nervousness that came with her journey into motherhood, Colleen MacDonald runs us through her half-marathon in Shanghai, Surabhi Tandon writes about following cyclists into the Himalayas, Kevin Finley shares how a stack of cash turned into two pairs of feet in the sand on Reunion Island, Lisa Lance shares her south of the border Thanksgiving experience, and Kim King paints a poet’s picture of  the Battleship USS California BB-44. And, of course, we’d never leave you without a collection of Microjourneys. 

Karolina Gembara, a Polish photographer, shares portraits from an Instagram photobooth she sat up in a Delhi neighborhood; Indian photographer Shruti Sharma makes us miss Manali in her beautiful photojourney complete with adorable dog photographs; and Mexican photographer Angel Cereceda shares his Naranjo de Bulnes series. A young, smart, Portland-based musician, Donevan Karr, holds down the Videostories section with his adorable music video featuring, well, loads of Donevan Karrs. 

As for us, I am now living on the Oregon Coast and have a new floppy-eared member of the family to introduce. Cormac McArfy loves cuddling up while I read, the smell of peppermint tea, and hates wet paws. Children really are what we make them, aren’t they? I’m enjoying the view over the bay as I brush my teeth in my upstairs bathroom, and am grateful for the new Nepali cafe I’ve found, which has relatively legitimate chai.

Susanna Wickes is the one who has some really interesting stuff going on, in that in addition to teaching in Inner Mongolia (in weather just as freezing cold as we hypothesized when I decided it would definitely not be a place for me), she’s also got a part-time gig lip-synching pop songs while wearing four-inch platform heels at a swanky Inner Mongolian nightclub. (Some girls get all the luck.) She’s also recently shared some heartwarming examples of Chinglish metaphors on friendship, which can be found here.

We hope you enjoy the collection in Issue Nine as much as we do, and remember to send us your own outer/inner/all around journeys at outsideinmagazine@gmail.com.

With Warm Puppies and Platform Heels,

Brandi Dawn Henderson & Susanna Wickes

Editors

We’ve got hurricane pieces from Shenan Prestwich, who writes of smoking cigarettes before the storm; from Marie Abate, who trusts a sturdy oak to protect her (and who also undresses); from Kate Krems, who watches from afar (specifically, from the 16^th floor of a swanky Los Angeles hotel) as her home is hit; and from Melanie Griffin, whose microjourney tells of the excellent company she kept during the dark hours of the storm.

We also have the grand finale to Ope Olum’degun’s five-part fiction series, Cinema Road; a piece from regular contributor Colleen MacDonald about getting smashed by a car on her bicycle while wearing fake Ray-Bans in China; a story by Élodie Alexandre about a small and passionate group of artists and their traveling display, and an essay by Nodnat that tells of coconut hooch on the Indian isle of Agaati. Ria Burman introduces us to Doug — a Texan, and a Christian — who sips coffee in San Francisco; Ioanna Opidee remembers her separation from the Greek sea as the blue below a bridge beckons her near, and Max Griffin offers the kind of advice that can only come from a scribbled-upon late-night cocktail napkin (or two).

As for Photostories this month, we offer Jeremy Edmunds’ journey through India’s abundant chaos and resources, and Johannes Mundinger’s rooftop paintings, which are spread throughout Berlin, Wroclaw, Mannheim, and Polesie. You can even see Mundiger in action if you mosey over to his videostory, which documents his Mannheim painting. Nate Haken’s videostory, Call to Prayer, is so lovely it will give you goosebumps.

And, of course, as always, don’t forget to give our Microjourneys a read. (Especially the one by Nathan Cornelius, my new boyfriend, whose incredible charm initially became overwhelmingly apparent to me when I first read a little, square poem he’d written.)

As far as us, Susanna is beginning to experience the incredible cold of an Inner Mongolian winter (as can be witnessed in her microjourney this month), and has worked Gangam-style dancing into her teaching sessions. She also bought these pink, glittery, faux-cheetah fur gloves to keep her hands warm while riding her bicycle around in the snow.

I spent the past weekend checking out Santa Fe, New Mexico for the first time, and fell head over heels for the arts culture (which is evidenced in my microjourney this month), and have just returned to the Pacific Northwest (and to my car, which is packed to its very brim with every single thing I own) in order to settle into a cozy little winter groove here in Oregon.

As always, we encourage you to send in anything travel-related, and we have NEWS! We’re now beginning to consider fiction on a grander scale than the every-now-and-then piece. (Just be sure to let us know which genre your submission falls under.)

Stimulatingly,

Brandi Dawn Henderson & Susanna Wickes

Editors

We also want to take an opportunity to promote a great new magazine, edited by one of this month’s Outside In contributors, Dario DiBattista. We highly recommend the high-quality reads you can find at 20somethingmagazine.com, especially these two recently published pieces by Outside In editor Brandi Dawn Henderson – Twenty Tips for Wannabe World Travelers and Un-Missed Connections.

As for us, Susanna just returned to Inner Mongolia from spending a weekend in Beijing, where it is rumored that she drank one thousand mojitos and honed her karaoke skills. She also got a great haircut, and got to wear a fancy crown!

And me, I’m back at the parents’ place in Idaho, and have recently commemorated my experience in Alaska with some permanent ink on the ol’ arm. I’m feeling pretty in love with the world, and am appreciating the balance that an occasional trip back home can provide to a life on the go.

Remember, travel cubs, there’s not a one of you who doesn’t have a valuable journey to get down on paper (or screen), and we’d love the opportunity to help you share, because (as our fancy, new business cards say) global storytelling can help hearts and brains to grow wiser.

With fresh ink and a hangover,

Brandi Dawn Henderson and Susanna Wickes

Editors

This month, we’ve got a scene from a Soviet hospital; a romp through a nudist beach in Croatia; a deep breath at a cabin in New Hampshire; an emotional airplane descent into New Zealand; a first international step for an Indian moving to Scotland; a glimpse into the lives of low-income, elderly artists in Washington, DC; a shimmy through a Spanish festival, and other stimulating (of the brain – geeeez!) content you’ll find when you grant yourself the gift of clicking around through Issue Six. (Obviously, you don’t want to miss out on the creaminess of this month’s Microjourneys.)

As for us, our editorial thrones are both placed in some pretty royally cool soils this month. Susanna has arrived in Inner Mongolia, and has already used her oozing Scottish charm to get a free milkshake. She’s also been eating a bunch of fascinating food-things, taking photographs of various depictions of Panda Bears, and will hopefully receive a package I sent her soon (which I told her, under no circumstances, should she open unless she’s completely alone, as I’m not entirely sure what can get a girl thrown into prison in Inner Mongolia, after all).

I’m still here in Alaska, though my time here is draining out of the hourglass at what seems like an awfully rapid rate. Bear sightings have slowed down a touch, but I’ve found a new passion in drawing stuff on animal bones with Sharpies. I’m getting incrementally better at flyfishing, and have developed a coping strategy for the seemingly cruel act of slashing hooks into things’ mouths, in that I’ve committed to giving all the fish compliments and bits of gratitude before releasing them (and their sore mouths) back into the river. “You’ve some lovely scales falling off there, Miss Trout! Good luck in your continued molting! Thank you so much for your participation in my entertainment!”

As always, we look forward to updates about what you’re doing out there in the world, and are always accepting submissions on the various ways in which you’re throwing off the bowlines, as they say.

Moose Hugs and Panda Kisses,

Brandi Dawn Henderson and Susanna Wickes

Editors

Issue Five already, huh? Oh, how time flies when we’re spending it with the likes of you lovely literary pups. This month brings stories from Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Alaska, from Europe as a whole, from the insides of big ol’ books, from Cape Cod, from inside the mad minds of a duo of Scottish videographers, from India (also here), Belgium, Oman, Ireland, Uganda, Laos, and from Brazil (where a Mormon missionary is nearly – chillingly – stabbed).

Excuse us while we gasp for breath – that was a terribly (wonderfully) long list of places.

Gaaaaaaasp.

There are even more places represented if you count this month’s Microjourneys, but if that first list had been any longer, it probably would have killed us.

As for us, Susanna is leaving for Inner Mongolia next Thursday, and has been found guilty of doing much booty-shaking to Shakira (while simultaneously being an Olympics-hater) back in the homeland. A bit of moving-to-Inner-Mongolia nervousness has overtaken the dear gal, so I’ve agreed to write down my motivational message – You got this shit. 100% – and send it to her. If you also want to write this down, decorate it, and send it to her, email us at outsideinmagazine@gmail.com.

I have been driving jet boats, squealing Eeeeee! Every time a bear appears out the window, picking blueberries sunning their bellies on tundra-covered hills, and generally loving the heck out of this summer on the Copper River. I also squeal Eeeeee! every time we get a wonderful new submission, so keep them’s a’ comin’, too.

Big, fat, warm blueberry love,
Brandi Dawn Henderson & Susanna Wickes
Editors

We couldn’t be more pleased with the submissions we received for Issue Four — from Oman, New Zealand, England via USA via India, Uganda, Nigeria, Scotland, and more. We’re excited about all the sharing of lives and cultures that’s happening, and encourage each of you valuable paradigm-holders to submit a piece of writing, photo essay, or short film that may help others to understand the place you come from in a new, deeper, shiny (or not) light.

As for us, Susanna’s got a super interesting short term gig in a rough part of Glasgow, in which she gets to go into really weird homes and pry into peoples’ personal lives. Read more about all that here. And me, I’m still loving my summer working in Alaska. So far, these are my favorite two sentences I’ve overheard (it just so happens — to my delight — that they occurred back to back):

“I helped a guy cut the head off a walrus one time, and — man — that was one of the worst things I’ve ever done.”

(The other guy considers this.)

“That reminds me of the time I slathered a horse’s lip with superglue.”

With that, we leave you with Issue Four. We hope you learn something new about this world we’re all sharin’, and that you’ll validate our beautiful contributors with loads of witty comments.

With love and warnings not to help anyone cut the head off a walrus,
Brandi Dawn Henderson & Susanna Wickes
Editors