Ola, travel pups!

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 and Inside Out Booth 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