Pat King:  Hey all, I'm Pat King. Some of you know me. Others don't. Thanks a lot for being here for our first Virtual Rountable. We're going to discuss the question, "What is an Outsider Writer?" and see where it leads us. I'll be a sort of moderator. If things get off topic I'll try to keep them back on track. Maybe. Who knows, we might go off topic in a good way, start talking about things we didn't expect. Could be fun.

Aleathia Drehmer:  After being invited to join this roundtable, I really began to think about what being an outsider writer means to me. I feel like someone on the outside really opens themselves up in a non-superficial way...not a "hey look at me" way, but something more subtle and intrinsic. I think the writing should open doors or windows into a slice of life that might make one cringe with identification. A writer should be able to allow the reader to live through the work, take it home, tuck it away in their shirtsleeves for peeking at when no one is looking. An outsider writer should build secrets with the reader and develop a human connection without ever making contact.

I often think the term outsider is easily misconstrued as an equivalent of someone living down and dirty, having that cliche "underground" lifestyle, but I feel that there are those of us that look and live mainstream lives while harboring the outsider on the inside.

Pat King:  I think the Inside-Outsider is a great concept. I agree, too, that anyone can be an outsider. You get a feeling in your gut that you don't belong to the hoard/herd. You feel as though you're no longer a robot, you feel like you're moving toward something most humans don't experience. Maybe you can't quite put your finger on what it is.....but it's there. The egg is beginning to crack.

Adelle Stripe:  I think by nature writers are 'outsiders'. By that I mean that in order to write about other people's lives and feelings, it makes for better reading if the writer is detached from the subject. For example, you describe things in a more authentic way when you are removed from the place you are writing about. Be it via memory, or even physically, the best writing comes to you when you have time and space in which to reflect.

The same rule applies to poetry. A poet's place in society up until very recently was that of a 'seeker of truth', poets were ranked alongside philospohers in their role in society. The status doesn't seem to apply anymore. In a recent pole in the UK, parent were asked which career they would hope their children would take - the answer, bank manager or doctor. When asked what would be the worst job their children could ever say they wanted to do when they left school, the answer was 'poet'.
I think what I'm trying to say is that by nature we are all outsiders, which is why we are drawn to the arts.

Be it poetry, painting or music, the arts has always been a refuge for the dispossessed. I only started writing a few years back, and to be honest, despite it being one of the most liberating moves I have ever made, it has left me feeling very isolated at times. I feel as though I look at the world with new eyes, and my perceptions have changed. This is a good thing, but I constantly need to fight the unsociable aspects of writing. I force myself to leave my room every day, and make new friends. If I didn't I would be a miserable cantankerous old fool. I think if I could give advice to any new writers, it's to try and find some kindered spirits. And to keep some level of sociability be it online, or in person...

Michael Grover:  Well let me think, outsider would make a good label, but we have enough labels and labels are getting us nowhere.

Outsider, I would definately say someone who is not excepted by the "inside" literary structure. Which seems to only want stuff that says nothing and is sucked dry of any life. That's stating the obviouse. Let me take it a step forward and say that an outsider does not fit into the clickes of the so called underground. Who hate the mainstream so much they have created their own similar elitist structure. An outsider does not kiss ass, an outsider does not have to look pretty, an outsider does not care if they suck up to the right people or piss the right people off. An outsider just writes in spite of everything. It gets to the point that they don't give a fuck what other people think, that this "underground" place will not publish their work because it says too much. Everyone just wants to be liked. No one cares about the bigger task of giving the people what they need. But then again the people are conditioned to automatically reject what they need aren't they? Quite a catch 22. Questions, comments? I'll step off the soapbox for now.

Aleathia Drehmer:  I am not so sure that people reject what they need per se but I do see them rejecting things that make them feel too much. Society is based on everything going fast, things that make giant waves, or that shock. Most of the time this writing holds little value. It might be entertaining for a few moments but it isn't the sort of work that lingers with a person and makes them feel something inside. It might make them feel cool for a minute.

I agree that the "underground" scene is as elitest as the "mainstream" literary factions. Maybe as outsiders we ride the middle line finding good things about both the underground and the mainstream. The underground has grit and the mainstream has numbers. I also don't think outsiders are exempt from the wanting to be liked notion. I think that is just human nature to try and find something in common with a group of people that makes one feel nurtured and safe. I don't write for people to like me, but it does help move things along.

Pat King:  Adelle has made a very good point: almost all writers and artists (and I would add philosophers) are outsiders to one degree or another. That is, if they're any good and if they really are artists. We're not just talking about "literary establishment vs. underground" here. We're talking about human nature, how most people swim with the stream and others, though it is a struggle, try their best to swim against the stream.

I work in a grocery store and sometimes when I stop and look at the customers, a horrifying image comes over me. I see a mindless school of fish stopping every now and then to feed.

Not mindless in the sense that they aren't intelligent, though. The store where I work is in an upper-middle class neighborhood and many of the people who shop there are doctors, lawyers, etc. I suppose I meant mindless in the sense that they just sort of accept the system that they're living in.

Okay, forgetting the "writer" part of the equation for a minute, I think that Adelle was saying that an outsider is someone who questions the morals, icons, metaphysical systems that they were born into.

I've basically thought along the same lines. The outsider is at all times alienated. 

I like what Alethia said about outsiders becoming popular. I believe she's right. Either an outsider is bought by the system and ceases to be an outsider or they maintain their outsider philosophy and roots (holding firm to their alienation) and stay outsider. The best example I can think of is William Burroughs. The guy was inducted into the academy at the end of his life. But he was never part of the academy's system, or any system for that matter.

Aleathia Drehmer:  To expound on the outsider writer riding the middle line, is it fair of me to think that an outsider would be content with a mild amount of success that might bring small money from contests and maybe some chaps if enough were sold, and be happy with having made a name for themselves in small press? Would it be enough for an outsider to know they have touched the lives of others in a way that makes them stop and think, or over time would this not be satisfying anymore?

As Pat discussed the customers in the grocery store as a school of fish, I see something similar in our local small town ER. The only difference is that most of those that come to see me are fairly mindless, have bred generations of deliquency into the gene pool. Poverty to most does not incite the need to write, it makes them want to escape into things that are easy. When I mention writing to my co-workers even, they look at me cross-eyed as if to say "you write for fun....not for school?"

I think it is the outsider's job to draw in those people on the edge of literature....those that might have a small interest that could be encouraged to have a bigger one. Karl Koweski did that for me. I wouldn't be here now if he hadn't encouraged me to step out of the box and submit. I think we have a responsibility to the craft that can't be found in the mainstream.

David Blaine:  It seems that the people involved in the discussion to this point all share the view that being a writer is a way to make a living, albeit a weak living. But what about the person who is a writer because he is alive, because he has no choice. Whether there is a chance to earn money or not, they are going to write. Whether they are the best, or just a wannabe, they are going to write. Hell, everyone sings in the shower. Few expect that to earn them a dime.

The outsider writer is a writer. Can't change that any more than a cat can stop being a cat.

I think we all, that is all humans, want to be liked, to receive approval, and acceptance. Regardless of what we may say, we are by nature a social animal. The problem is there are various ways to try to garner that acceptance and not all are considered virtuous.

One can lie to gain acceptance. One can run scams. Or one can go about living his life at least as much for others as he does for himself. He can at least try. I think if you gain acceptance that way, there's some validity in it. It's a genuine acceptance.

And writing is the same way. You can become a known commodity as a writer by lying, or running scams. I think most of the time you only fool yourself though. Or you can write. You can make an effort to become a better writer, you can offer your work as bread for the starving psyche. And if perchance you become accepted, it will be a genuine acceptance. And your writing will be found valid by others. Not because you were introduced to them by Robert Hass or Robert Pinsky or the ghost of Robert Kennedy or anyone else. But because you put in the time to learn, you paid your dues, you did your homework, and your stuff doesn't suck.

*takes a breath*

And in one way every writer is an outsider, even Donald Hall, perhaps especially Donald Hall, because for all he's done to be appointed as poet laureate, he can't be receiving nearly enough income from the reading public. He's getting a stipend from the government, just like any other grant chasing academic poet.

Perhaps the Stephen Kings, the Tom Clancys, perhaps they aren't outsiders. Perhaps they have the world by the balls. But I doubt it. I'm pretty sure if you asked them, they would tell you that in a lot of ways, their lives suck too.

And in another way, perhaps we are all insiders. Because even when I was just learning to write, at least my mama liked my shit.

Adelle Stripe:  A friend of mine wrote something which definitely applies to david blaine's point when questioned about why he writes every day, his reply was 'Well you need to take a shit every day. If I don't write I will explode."
I don't write poetry and ever expect anyone to publish it - if I ever earn a penny from poetry then that will be a bonus. Poetry is there as the only way I can sincerely express my feelings in their purest form. It's like an insatiable thirst; poetry represents clarity and resolution, and most poems that I write never see the light of day.

I am interested in the point about the literary underground though. For years I thought I was the only person in the world who had these strange detached feelings about the north of England. Through writing poems and getting them published on the internet, I met two other people who not only stylistically had many things in common with me, but also had the same themes, and many similar turns of phrase. We were all from the same part of the UK too. Three outsiders who couldn't get any interest in their work. So we joined forces, and decided to partake in a poetry project, a little chapbook with 6 poems each based on the towns we grew up in. We call ourselves The Brutalists. There are three of us, and together we help to publicise each others work at either side of the Atlantic. All of a sudden our little DIY poetry project starts to get publicity, and off the back of that, we get lots of young writers across the UK contacting us with their poems, that are really similar too. Some of these writers have been writing way longer than we have, but our styles are very similar. What I'm trying to say is, when I was sat in my room feeling like a complete outsider, not being able to share the work on my desktop, it was through publishing online that I found a few other people like me. Then you realise that you are not unique, that we all have writers in other countries that maybe we have more in common with than we initially realised. Through the internet there is freedom to unite with other communities of writers, and to understand that although you may feel like an outsider, there are other outsiders out there too - it's just a case of scratching the surface a little...

David Blaine:  Well there are rewards to be had for our writing beyond cash money. When you speak of finding others who feel as you do it reminds me of a time when someone wrote me in response to a poem and said something like, "Before I read your poem I didn't think anyone else ever felt the way I did."

That meant a lot to me, not just to know she liked my poem, but that what I had written had made a difference in her life. She didn't feel as isolated any more.

When it comes to outsiders, watching America's Got Talent gave me a bit of insight last night. OK, so stone me for watching reality television, I deserve it.

But every one of the contestants is an entertainment industry outsider. Cracking "Hollywood" is at least as tough as cracking the Commercial/Academic publishing industry.

Now what immediately comes to mind when watching the show last night is that many of these people don't belong on T.V. at all. Their friends and family played a cruel trick by offering hope and watching them go up and self-destruct in front of millions of people.

And there are outsider writers like that. It can't be denied. They've even ruined complete words and phrases for me. I'll never be able to write "crimson" or "shard" in a poem again! Damn them.

But, and this is so important, there were real stars on that show last night. People who could play music, sing, dance, and entertain just as well as the big names in Hollywood. And they never had a chance before last night.

Only one will win the million dollar prize at the end of this show, and I doubt I'll follow it to see who that is. It won't matter. Many of these people will be able to go on and use their talents in a larger way due to the exposure, whether they win or not. (Just as many will have to go out and hang their heads for ever going on the show at all!)

And that's what I'd like to see for writers. A chance to gain a little exposure, and then it's all up to them. Sink or swim.

We've got LuLu, we've got the internet. We can write, publish and publicize. All we have to do is convince people we're worth their attention.

Pat King:  David, do you think outsiders should rely on the mainstream or academic presses for such a contest? I know that someone in the small press is holding a "poetry idol" contest but, of course, it's not going to get that much exposure. Could the underground/outsider community pull together for something like this?

I wonder too, should outsider writers be open to some sort of gimmicks external to the writing to gain publicity? Should the outsider writer even care about publicity? I know Adelle is right and the Brutalists have a following. And this is great. But does the size of a following matter? I mean, reading is pretty far down on the list of things to do, at least as far as the public at large is concerned. We're already trying to slice a miniature pie.

I like where this is going, although I think it's getting a little off topic. I'd rather steer clear of the money issue because I think we can all agree that it's something, as artists, we shouldn't concern ourselves with. As Adelle mentioned, writing is at least an addiction for us, if not something that has become ingrained in our entire being.

I'll let the questions above stand for a while but I'd like to get back to the main issue. I think we all agreed that most literary writers are outsiders to a degree at least. I'd like to discuss whether there is a hierarchy to being an outsider, if there are degrees to that particular state of being.

To this end, I'll leave with a quote from the seminal book on the subject, The Outsider by Colin Wilson, in which he gives us his definition of an outsider. It is the thesis of his book: What can be said to characterize the outsider is a sense of strangeness, of unreality.

Leopold McGinnis:  Well, my girlfriend said that an outsider writer was a writer who locked his keys in the house...


I think that's a valid answer! The problem with the phrase is that it is broad. It's whatever you want it to be. But I think by including 'writer', you can't say that all writers are outsiders. These are writers who are outside of the normal or accepted realm of writing. If someday we're accepted and cherish, then I guess we aren't outsiders anymore, unless the fact that we came in from the outside with no support (like burroughs) holds up over time.

Outsider writers share a commonality by either nature or by circumstance. A lot of my perceptions of writing and 'success' have largely been shaped by my experience of not being accepted by mainstream or small presses. For some reason they just don't like all my poems about crimson shards! My stuff is stranded between mainstream and bizarre, but compared to most 'outsider' writing, a lot of my stuff is 'commercial.' At least the fiction stuff - yet commercial places really don't want to run with it.

I think an outsider writer is a writer who REALIZES that they aren't being accepted, that there is a very likely chance that they will NEVER be, but goes on doing it anyway. Even if they tell themselves to stop. Even if they lose money. All bullshit about 'we have to write, that's what makes us writers' aside, an outsider writer is aware that he/she is an outsider and, in the end, doesn't care, begins to thrive on that fact.

I think Pat raises an interesting question, though. Are we STRANGE?

David Blaine:  Pat, I didn’t mean to say I wanted poets to have a contest like American Idol, no. I just wish that people would listen to our voices before dismissing us. People that could promote, publish, publicize us. We never get much of a chance, and that ties in with something Leopold said. His prose, his stories are mainstream yet he’s dismissed from the publishing industry there as well. But that’s because of the money issue.

I don’t think the publishing industry discards the stories, just the author. He’s not a marketable commodity. The reading market is limited. Hell, I just admitted to watching television, which is a hanging offense, no? So yes, the reading market is limited and the commercial publishers can get all the material they need to meet market demand from the Kings and Clancys. Not their fault more people don’t read. They’re competing with television, cable services, video games, dvds, and so on. At the younger ages, when kids might be hooked on reading, they’re competing with 3-on-3 B ball, Little League, Squirt ice hockey or Pop Warner football, and up here in the country, there’s 4-H.

I agree, money is a non-issue. As I mentioned earlier, even Donald Hall isn’t making fair money from his actual writing. He teaches, he gets a stipend as poet laureate. That sucks. But outsiders don’t get respect either. And that’s perhaps the crux of the biscuit.
In a day when adults watch cartoons for entertainment, The Simpsons, The Family Guy, who expects literature to be commercially viable?

But I tried to write an article on The Guild of Outsider Writers in Wikipedia yesterday and the editor flagged it for deletion. The reason was “lack of nobility” or in other words, they aren’t doing anything worthy of recognition. Hmmmm. Putting control of literature back into the hands of the authors isn’t deemed worthy of recognition. But my red headed step brother, David Blaine, the man who is famous for almost drowning, living in a box suspended over a river, and being frozen in a block of ice for three days, he gets two pages. See, the whole frigging value system of Western society is really off kilter.

Leopold’s idea that outsider writers actually thrive on the rejection is interesting. There would be a certain amount of freedom, because whether you are writing for market or just for an audience, there is a possibility that you’ll alter your work for an intended audience, peers, family, community, or, ugh, editors.

I love the fact that few local people know who I am or what I do. To them, I’m just the guy that owns the hardware store. But I have to admit, if too many local people started reading what I’ve posted online, in my blogs, in my poems, it might hurt my hardware business. I know if I was famous as a writer, it would change what I wrote. I doubt I’d start a poem with “The refrigerator is full of used condoms…”

Aleathia Drehmer:  I have to say that I don't really agree that an outsider would thrive on rejection. I think that is kind of defeatest and unhealthy if I must be honest. I take my fair share of lumps in the form of rejections. I don't necessarily like them, but I use them as an opportunity to examine what I have written. I use the rejections to reshape words and phrasings, and most of the time when I do this, I come away with a tighter, more cohesive work. I think some rejection is good for a writer, but loving it is another story.

David Blaine:  I don't think Leopold meant total rejection. Rejection by the monolithic publishing empire perhaps. Don't worry, I'm sure your mama still loves you!

There are plenty of people who would say my writing sucks. Many people who I don't regard as competent to make that assessment. So some rejection is good. If Bevis and Butthead liked my work I might go out and shoot myself.

Karl Koweski:  My definition of an outsider writer is all inclusive. Everyone who puts pen to paper, in order to express themselves whether through poetry or prose is an outsider writer. The act of writing is such an isolated endeavor. Everything else being talked about here, the money, the submission process, the whining about lack of small press marketability has nothing to do with writing. In the end, this is The Guild of Outsider Writers, not outsider publishers. A person who loves to write will write regardless of rejection, acceptance, size of audience, it doesn't matter. I don't believe in some conspiracy that's meant to push the writer outside the mainstream, outside academia down, while exulting MFA graduates. I believe talented writers will find a readership, regardless. And if a large readership is what is desired, rather than sitting back bitching about lack of intelligent readers and competition from other forms of media, go out there and advertise yourself, give readings, sell your chapbooks. Do something constructive. If you put out a chapbook with a 100-200 press run, and you can't sell them all, why assume that a larger print run through a larger publisher would garner success? So in the end, I think we are all outsider writers, regardless of success, regardless of publication credits, regardless of style and subject matter, we're all united by the need to express ourselves with the written word. It's up to us to make our voices be heard. Nobody else.

Miles Bell:  Koweski, you sonofa... had maybe 200 words written, stopped for 20 minutes for fajitas, then I come back and bing! my points exactly (admittedly better expressed).

At least Ousider Writer is a better handle, if one must be had, than several of the other ones I've seen...I mean, Outlaw poets? Don't make me laugh. Living in a wheelbarrow for 40 years writing about the cockroaches you had to eat to keep you going doesn't make you an outlaw. It makes you a bum. I'm wary of labels. I love what the Outsider Writers is doing, because it's getting people recognised for their writing without any ulterior motive. And it's the kind of writing I like to read, and identify with, but the backstory is irrelevant. A good poem is good whether it's written by a lawyer in Wisconsin or a drug baron in Namibia.

I don't want to be an outsider. I'd like thousands of people to read what I do, as I believe we all would like, but only so I could write all the time and not have to work on someone else's terms for a living. S.A. Griffin told me something like 90,000 copies of the Outlaw Bible of American poetry were sold, so people must be interested. But ultimately I'm as pleased with the poem I wrote yesterday that maybe only 100 people will read and maybe only 10 will like as if I wrote a poem like "Howl" that was analysed and taught and made a reputation that will last forever. It's the writing, the writing, the writing, that counts, not movements, cliques, sales.

Maybe my reluctance to fully join in makes me an outsider, right?

Karl Koweski:  ha, ha, Miles... I had a pot of macaroni boiling but I knew if I didn't finish this, I'd just keep putting it off. I see we've got the same mindset. Hell, I'd love to be able to make a career of writing, the way many would love to support themselves through singing or painting. What joy I get from writing and what joy I get from money are two vastly different things. And I agree labels do nothing for me. Labels for me has never once helped put a word on the page. Which is why I dig the hell out of Outsider Writers. To me, it's not a label so much as a state of being.

Pat King:  Oh, wow. I'm blushing. OK, this was really fun. I think this is a good place to end because I can see us starting to talk in circles if we go any longer....he he....we'll have a new rountable starting on Monday and ending sometime around Friday. The question is going to be a pretty fun, laid back thing to consider: "Where are we going? Where have we been?"

Thanks to all who participated!

Last update : 25-11-2007 17:49

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