We want to welcome four of the newest contributors to the Outsider Writers Collective. As we grow, it seems only appropriate that we would embrace new faces to keep us all up to date on what goes on out there in this insane lit world.
Some of these people we’ve known for a while, either through their writing or by direct contact. Some, we’re only just beginning to know. All, we welcome warmly.

Pela Via is a wife, mother and writer. Visit online at pelavia.com

Joseph M. Gant is a poet trying to breathe in a punchcard world. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he is a lifelong student of traditional Tibetan religion and culture. The most interesting thing he has to talk about is his degree in Scientific Glassblowing. But don’t ask him what a scientific glassblower does— He’ll charge you a nickel; it’s how he pays for pens.

Federica Nightingale was born in Turin (Italy) in 1964. She lives in the countryside, in a small village on the top of a hill. Writes mostly poetry.

Lynn Alexander is a past oft-contributor to OWC. She is a social worker, writer, artist, poet, independent producer of publications and web content, and is involved in a number of social justice organizations, collectives, and community groups.

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Blue Print Review’s Dorothee Lang is a busy bee. And she likes it that way. Her forthcoming book in transit (which I was extremely fortunate to read as an advance copy) is nearly ready to pop, and for the newest edition of her stellar journal—Issue #23, (dis)comfort zones—she decided to try something a little different, and she’s been releasing the content in increments, giving readers who follow along a special treat by allowing them to be a part of the great unfurling. Each text is accompanied by original images and, on occasion, additional insights on particular texts provided by the author. The overall effect is a kind of tranquil vibrancy. But it moves. As an exploration. And it’s pretty damn cool.

What’s also cool is that Blue Print Review wants you to submit for Issue #24, Micro Cosmos, in which Lang looks to collect “the small and the large aspects of life, and the way they connect.”

Click HERE for submission guidelines.

Some readers act for the rhythm of the language, the aesthetics of the words. Some act for the story itself, for the characters, not the depictions of them. Scott McClanahan’s Stories II falls into the extreme latter camp. In this, McClanahan’s second collection from Six Gallery Press (after 2008’s Stories I, reviewed at OWC here) each tale comes stripped of any linguistic flamboyance, opting instead for a casual, oral fable style frame around which to display beautiful nuggets of piercing insight.

This insight most often comes in the form of direct address, cornering the reader into what should be an uncomfortable defense. But after having been lulled by so many pages of elegantly simple prose, each moment of author-reader intimacy hits with stark impact.

In “The Prisoners,” for example, after a gentle arc concerning the narrator’s experience teaching writing to prison inmates, he discovers that an apparently sane friend of his has murdered his own three-year-old daughter. Until the end, subverting the direct “you,” McClanahan dodges literary subtleties and instead offers “I knew you couldn’t trust anyone in this life, not even yourself. I wondered what murder was waiting in side of me to commit. I wondered what murder was waiting inside of the person who was reading this” (pg. 90).

In true nature to the oral fable style, many stories rely on some form of repetition, whether blatantly as with the aptly titled “Fable #1,” wherein a near-retirement teacher harps on a single student success story, constantly bragging that “he’s a doctor now,” or less so, as with “Hernia Dog,” where a group of schoolchildren routinely pass the dilapidated yard of a dying dog. Not coincidentally, these stories that utilize repetition are those that succeed the most (“Hernia Dog” and “Fable #1” are absolutely stunning, two of the most heartbreaking stories I’ve read in years).

Despite the implied continuity of Stories I and Stories II, though they share theme and style, Stories II shows an evolution in McClanahan’s writing, beyond the good ol’ boy storytelling, and into the realm of fine young gentleman storytelling.

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Michael J. Solender on the new collection of poems by OWC member and Opium Poetry 2.0 editor Ross Vassilev.

While legions of writers and poets struggle with punching up colorful words in just the right shade to elicit emotion or punctuate their meanings, Ross Vassilev manages to connect his work with the reader in black and white. Mostly black.

Vassilev, editor of Opium Poetry 2, and Asphodel Madness, has 10 of his works featured in the eChap, Village Idiot, produced by Full of Crow Press. Vassilev doesn’t rely on carefully crafted prose or just the right word combinations to create a mood or elicit a response from his readers. He speaks viscerally, in short bursts and with blunt phrasing that often punches his readers right in their gut. Read more »