Paul G. Bens, Jr.
Sometime after the invention of the wheel and before the dawn of the computer age, Paul G. Bens, Jr., was born in a tiny Kentucky town. He is a former film and television casting director, former film producer, former altar boy, former boy scout, and always on the look-out for his next "former". Currently he works in the legal department of a major Hollywood studio and slings booze at a popular San Fernando valley restaurant. His short fiction has appeared in the UK magazine The Egg Box and right here in Outsider Ink. His forays into non-fiction include articles in various magazines, and his one book, "Next! An Actor's Guide to Auditioning", is actually still in print somewhere on the planet, though royalty checks never seem to be waiting in his mailbox.
Read Dwellings

Luke Buckham
i live in a very hot non-airconditioned attic, with my girlfriend and her pitbull, lucy, in the middle of a dying industrial city called schenectady (NY), which does not live up to its delicious name. we do not pay rent, so technically we are squatters, but so far the eviction police have not come to take us away. hopefully they will, soon, and force me to move back to the country. here, when i walk out my door, all i walk on is tar, and all i smell is filtered through a screen of smoke.
current post-bukowski poetry (not that it's his fault, as he was a very passionate original), with occasional exceptions, has gotten too smug, casually conversational, self-conscious, and cynical to be even slightly interesting. i want it dead.
i would like to have an artistic life like that of miles davis, always shifting styles, always experimenting, staying 10 steps ahead of the curve, if there is such a curve anymore. not for my ego but for my unsatisfiable hunger. i'm interested only in the kind of art that turns the intensity of life up to an almost unbearable level--and that this can be done quietly, too.
because of the temperature in my aforementioned attic, i usually write naked, and hopefully the spirit of my comfortable, guiltless nudity comes through in my words.
my work has appeared or is about to appear in in unlikely stories, improvijazzation nation, wired art for wired hearts, snow munkey, and best of sanfrancisco.
Read the mirror still hangs

Gail Louise Chagall
Gail Louise Chagall directs a public interest group in Chicago, IL, USA and is writing for an MFA at the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her work has appeared under various names in Zoetrope All-Story Extra, FictionFix, The Salt River Review (Sparta to Elroy and The Telemarketer's Point of View), Brevity, 3am Magazine and is upcoming in Literary Potpourri and Flashquake.
Read I Liked Him Better When He Was Dead
Email Gail Louise Chagall: Minokemeg@aol.com

Judd Hampton
Judd Hampton lives among the canola fields and pump-jacks of northern Alberta, Canada with his wife and two children. His stories are forthcoming in Night Train, Unknown Writer, Literary Potpourri, Whistling Shade, The Green Tricycle, and The Palace of Reason. Current stories appear at Insolent Rudder, Eyeshot, Literary Potpourri and Bovine Free Wyoming . His artwork can be viewed here at Outsider Ink, Opium Magazine and Aileron Literary Journal.
Read Living Off The Land

Francesco Levato
I learned at an early age that things aren't always as they appear on the surface, that beneath the veneer of suburban life there lies a certain darkness. It is something I carry with with me and it shapes my writing as much as the urban landscape from which my parents fled and to which I returned, attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Eager to learn computer graphics, a then nascent subject not taught in any school, I left the Institute to work in the field. And after holding various Art Director positions I formed a multimedia studio with my wife, Catlin, that we own and operate today. We currently live in Central Italy and though my writing is typically influenced by my environment it always has an underlying current of social consciousness. Most recently my poetry has appeared in Outsider Ink, Niederngasse and Poetic Review.
Read his Poetry

Piers Midwinter
Piers Midwinter once believed he could develop his art in the academic tradition, but later learned more from artists 'untainted' by culture when he worked with adults with autism. His paintings are often created using spontaneous 'automatic writing' techniques. He then accentuates shapes, colours and lines that he likes. Then something will emerge from the piece and he will focus on that - but not always! Though he was educated, and can not classify himself as an Outsider, he does enjoy different cultures and has traveled extensively on his own. He currently resides in Rochester, Kent, and hopes to return to the US and exhibit his work there.
Visit him online at Raw Art Link
View his Artwork
Email Piers Midwinter: piers@rawartlink.com

Elizabeth Moray
I live in Southeastern Michigan with my family. One of my stories appears in Sweet Fancy Moses; several others have appeared in small, now out of print, journals.
Read For the Love of a Man

Maud Newton
Maud Newton lives in Brooklyn, NY, much to the dismay of her southern parents, who believe civilization ends at the Mason-Dixon line. Having abandoned her brief experiment with the practice of law, Maud works as an editor in Manhattan, and is a graduate student in fiction writing at CCNY. Her work appears in storySouth, Eyeshot, MiamiStories.com, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in Pindeldyboz.com.
Read Victim Queen

Ellen Parker
Ellen Parker lives in Seattle. Her fiction appears or is forthcoming in Literary Potpourri, Painted Moon Review, Bovine Free Wyoming, Opium Magazine, and Insolent Rudder.
Read I Reek

 

Sean Meriwether - Editor
Sean's fiction focuses on the bizarre nature of everyday life in an attempt to make sense of the world. His short fiction has been published in Of the Flesh, Best Gay Erotica 2002 and Best Gay Erotica 2001, and appeared online in Suspect Thoughts. He has the pleasure of editing Outsider Ink and Velvet Mafia: Dangerous Queer Fiction. Sean lives in New York with his partner, photographer Jack Slomovits, and their two dogs, Sasha and Nik Nak. Together they form Blowsquish.com, an internet design company. He is currently working on a novel and building a collection of short fiction.

Visit his website at: seanmeriwether.com
email Sean Meriwether