A few years ago, Laurel Walsh was dining with friend Sam Roloff and grousing about a Web site that had published one of her short stories along with a piece she found insultingly misogynistic.

"I was furious that my work would appear on the same page as virulently anti-female material," says Walsh, who holds an MFA from Hamline University. "So Sam asked a simple question, 'Why don't you start your own magazine?'"

Although Walsh didn't own an Internet-compatible computer at the time and claims she was "barely able to master email," she and Roloff -- who luckily had just opened a web design firm -- began to brainstorm ideas for an e-zine celebrating artists and writers from around the world.

The result was Double Dare Press (www.doubledare.com), a Web site loaded with provocative art, fiction, reviews and poetry. The site receives an average of 2,600 hits a day, with two-thirds of the visitors from outside North America.

Recently, Double Dare was awarded "Best of the Web" for writers in the London Telegraph, and 60,000 readers logged on in a single day. "I thought that our counter had broken," says Walsh.

Accessible content and non-mainstream art by emerging and unknown artists is of utmost importance. "I am allergic to art-snobbery and hate the fact that most magazines would rather publish terrible work from a known writer than great stuff from someone who is not," she says. "Our goal has been to be as inclusive as is humanly possible."

Double Dare has published talents from India to Romania, and features numerous regular contributors, including Suzanne Nielsen, a writer and teacher who pens the column "Cool Dead People," Sean McKenna, a movie reviewer who rates his film with piles of steaming dookie, and New Zealand DJ Dane Franklin who bangs out the music beat.

"These three have spent the last three years writing columns for no cash, making deadlines with no reward. I am so damn blessed to have them," says Walsh.

Walsh, who currently resides in St. Paul with her husband and two young children, lived in Milwaukee for five years and still visits regularly. "I used to tell people that I could not write if I was not in Milwaukee," she says. "It's a city that celebrates art and the effort to create. Other cities pale in comparison. Screw New York, you want to saturate yourself in creative energy, move to Milwaukee."

Here's more from OMC's interview with the witty Ms. Walsh:

OMC: How often does the content change on the site?

LW: We aim for monthly but due to unforeseen circumstances -- the month that I gave birth for example -- we have missed deadlines.

OMC: Will there ever be a hard copy version of DDP?

LW: In a perfect world, I envision a "Best of Double Dare" in all its glossy glory, but I really think that the Internet provides a beautiful opportunity for us to touch so many individuals. If you like what you see, you can browse back through the archives and look at every single painter that has presented their work in our virtual gallery. If you like a poet, the site is set up so that you can type in their name and see every piece that they ever presented. No hard copy version will give you that depth, that full, lucid interaction. I like us up and out there and not recycled and exhausted. The web is so alive with possibility.

OMC: What did you do after you left Milwaukee?

LW: I left Milwaukee the first time to move to London. I was nineteen. The next time I left, I went on a European tour with a bunch of my Milwaukee friends (Pete Hoeffle, Pauline Werkmeister, Jenna Perrin, Holly Monka, Kira Dahlk). I ended up living and teaching in Prague for two years. I met my husband there.

OMC: Ever get back to Milwaukee?

LW: I was just there last month and my jaw dropped to see how fancy Brady Street has become. The city keeps reinventing itself. La Fuente is like Chi-Chi's on steroids. I remember when you'd have another patron's rear-end resting on your shoulder while you enjoyed your chimichanga.