Here is a direct quote from my best friend, Heather:
If I turned into a vampire and was given a library of infinite options, I would probably not read a short story collection until the sun had died.
Even though I guffawed at this (it was in response to me talking about my own short story collection), admittedly I once felt the same way. And, as it happens, the journey to discovering my love of short stories is also the journey of how I came to found OFIC.
The following has been copied over from our new Substack.
Dear reader,
OFIC Mag is back! Here’s what we’ve been up to:
We ended our print run with issue #13 last October. It was not an easy or willing choice for us. Being a print publication was part of our initial vision for OFIC. Unfortunately our subscription platform of choice was Patreon, which eliminated its “per creation” billing option last fall. We publish three issues per year, so we charged three times a year. With that change forcing us to reconsider our workflow, we decided that the complications of printing and distribution were no longer conducive to our long-term goals—our long-term goals being: keep going for as long as possible.
Initially I intended to pivot to a fully online publication with stories posted on our website, because that’s how most digital lit mags work. But I started doing research into how other mags operate, and I discovered that while I love the aesthetic of many of them and the work they produce, I really hate how they’re organized. Namely, you click a random title of a random piece and start reading. With print, you can just turn pages; there’s an inherent order to it. But with online magazines presented as tables of contents with no information but a work’s title and its author, there’s nothing that really encourages you to read.
What I found myself thinking repeatedly was, “Just send me a story. I just want to read a story.” I don’t want to click on a link to a page with the story on it. I don’t want to click on a link that takes me to a page of other links, especially if those links are just author names I don’t recognize. I don’t want to be met with a paywall after three paragraphs. I just want a story, in full, in my inbox at regular intervals.
Then I thought, “Hey, why don’t I just...do that?”
And here we are.
How it works
We’re keeping it simple. Free subscribers receive one story every other week. No paywalls.
In addition to the above, paid subscribers ($5 per month or $30 per year) receive the PDF and EPUB files of each issue as it releases. New issues come out on April 1, July 1, and October 1 each year. You can also purchase them on our website for $8. We understand that’s a weird price discrepancy, but $5/month and $30/year is the lowest Substack will let us go.
Funds from paid subscriptions go toward our operational expenses and contributor honorariums.
Subscribe
More info under the cut
In addition to our relaunch, here are some other changes we’re working on:
Building a digital archive
Since our initial launch in 2022, we’ve published 13 print issues containing a total of 112 stories. Recently we reached out to all our previous contributors and asked if they’d want their stories to be re-released online, and thankfully many of them said yes. So starting this month, every other Monday you’ll receive a story from a previous issue until our next issue in October.
We’ll also share stories from our archive sporadically throughout the year, particularly in January through March when we don’t have a new issue to post from.
New social media
Social media in general has kind of tanked in recent years, what with Twitter being taken over by a supervillain and AI slop infecting every corner of the internet. And yet we must persist. Going forward we aim to have a stronger and more consistent social media presence.
You can find us on:
Tumblr, which remains our platform of choice, being as we are a team of old school tumblrinas
X, simply because we already had that account set up
Bsky, which is a brand new platform for us but we have high hopes for it
Duosuma
We’ve finally moved away from Submittable, which has long been the bane of our existence. We’re instead using Duosuma to manage our submissions. We’ll open for submissions for our April 2027 issue in fall.
Lastly, here are a few miscellaneous notes/reminders:
To former patrons
We were unable to import our full mailing list from Patreon, so if you’re a former patron coming upon this post from a social media share and find yourself having to subscribe, please know that Patreon just straight-up erased most of our patrons’ email addresses. I did my best to go through and manually add people whose email addresses I knew, but I’m very sorry if I missed yours.
Back issues
If you’d like a physical copy of one of our previous issues, we have some remaining back stock you can purchase at our store. We’ve discounted all physical back issues to $12 each.
Up next…
Our next post will be on July 13—an essay I’ve written on the history and importance of the short story. After that, we’ll continue sharing archived pieces every other Monday until we publish issue #14 on October 1st.
can't believe it took me eight months of bookbinding before finishing a single bellarke fanbind, but delighted to start out with this anthology of fics by @bettsfic (talking with you in the dark, the art of scraping through, and moderation). half letter, 72k, 272 pages. bookcloth is cotton canvas with medium/paste mix, title painted with textile acrylics.
so i meant to make two copies, but the guillotine ate one and i was just not in the mood to reprint seventy pages. it took a few months to get around to redoing mine, and in that time i fell in love with octavo (2.75"x4.25") books, so i re-imposed it and made a miniature version! it basically turned into 4 pt text, which is perfectly legible if you're already used to having headaches when you read and you're pretty nearsighted anyway. everything else is the same, except for dark blue endpapers and metallic thread on the endbands. someday i hope to reunite my copy with @bettsfic's and get a picture of both books together.
Finally finished SOTR and oh my god you were SO right about Maysilee and Wyatt!!!! They were amazing and I'm totally shipping them, I'm so weak for "mean girl x boy with a heart of gold" ships 😭😭😭 If you ever write something for them I'd be super happy, your Maysilee would be great (also I agree with you on SOTR feeling kind of first draft-y??? like, I did like it, I loved the last hundred pages but. Boy. Did I really read most of it with a completely blank face and barely feeling anything)
apparently the film is coming out in november? that seems so soon to me but then again the script and book were probably being written at the same time. anyway i hope to god the movie is better than the book and i'll get back to my wysilee "red string of fate" games idea
Daeron the Drunken Dreamer [Original Art]
"Not that I ever asked to have my honor redeemed. Whoever has it can keep it, so far as I'm concerned. Still, here we are. For what it's worth, Ser Duncan, you have little to fear from me."
a lot of men that people online are obsessed with calling daddy are one 'good boy' away from shattering their knees on the ground forgetting their names and panting like dogs. it has to be said.
This was my first time participating in the yearly Renegade Bookbinding Exchange! I bound rest in grace for the lovely @stuffgoeswrong. Violet Evergarden has been a huge favorite of mine for many years, and I had so much fun with this bind. Other firsts for this bind include hand sewn endbands and a true three piece Bradel. Another Renegader also made me my very own finishing press(top right), and I'm in love.
A huge thank you to @bettsfic for writing it and allowing me to send her an author copy. You can read rest in grace on AO3 here!
I hope this is okay to recommend to you, but there are some reallyyy great canvas verso/maelle fics on ao3 that I think you'd enjoy. Just scrolling through the tag will get you so many gems but my favorites are anything by ao3 user kantan (especially this one: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66710038/chapters/172117264) and beatwice (https://archiveofourown.org/works/79021421). Toxic and obsessive! Layers of siblingism! Devastation! The bond between a deeply traumatized lonely grieving girl and a suicidal man who looks and talks like the brother that died to save her who she feels she can't live without and who she is desperate to trap to play house with him forever... very fun!
i read "Not Make-Believe" last night and it was WONDERFUL. i'll read your other rec as well. this pairing is definitely going to be a Forever Ship for me. who knows whether i'll write anything for it but i do have a few half-formed fic ideas simmering in the back of my mind.
betts!!! question time: project hail mary is on cinemas right now. do you recommend reading the book before watching the movie? i don't know if i should watch it now on the cinema and read the book later or read the book now and watch it later at home (i really don't have the time to read it AND then go yo the cinema, it won't be there that long)
this is a great question, and one i have been thinking about a lot.
so, in my opinion, PHM is extremely unique in that the film is less an adaptation of the novel and more a supplement to it. i say this because the novel is mostly Grace explaining stuff to us with his very voicey narration that does not have a whole lot of imagery. in fact i listened to an interview with Andy Weir a couple days ago where he says he doesn't have a visual imagination at all, so seeing his work adapted to the screen is like seeing it for the first time without any real preconception of what things look like.
the approach of the filmmakers seems to have been "well the book does a lot of stuff really well. let's just focus on what it doesn't do well" which is to provide visuals and the emotional impact of Ryan Gosling Having Feelings.
i think the Full PHM Experience involves seeing the movie *and* reading the book in whatever order works for you. so i would say it's worth it to see the film theaters because of how beautifully done it is, then take your time enjoying the book.
i love genshin. i actively discourage my friends from getting into it. the world is beautiful and expansive and extremely fun to explore. seeing the whole map is overwhelming. the story is engaging and the lore is rich and deep and scattered throughout the world and built up through quests. the lore is also incomprehensible to the casual audience. some of my favorite characters and the most compelling backstories ive seen exist in this game. theyre locked behind thousands of lines of text or limited events or, most egregiously, pages of notes hidden around a region with no in-game guide to finding them all. the combat system is fun to learn and work with and around and you can build so many creative teams and play whoever you want. the meta has nosedived into gimmicky mechanics and outright shills for new characters. new characters are fun and exciting and learning their kits and building them is an enjoyable part of the game. the gacha mechanic is predatory and aspects of it are unforgiving-- god forbid you ever pull for a four star. there's a built in card game and home design simulator and rhythm game and ucg. these things cannot be removed if you have no interest in them. the writing covers themes of war and guilt and power struggles and justice and fate and family and passing the torch to the next generation; who deserves the right to knowledge; what does it mean to be a human or a god. the plot is unfocused and bloated with filler and so far removed from the original objective of finding your family after losing them. this game has something good for everyone. this game will drive everyone crazy in its own way. the game is free to play. the mental barrier to entry is so high. i love playing but i hate feeling like i'm being held hostage. it's so good and bad. i play it every day and i think no one should get into it.
What video game can you not complete without cheat codes?
Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.
alas, i can't get perfection in Stardew Valley without mods. i just hate how clunky the combat is and i hate having to do combat and mining at the same time, so i always use the MURDERDRONE mod which just one-shots all enemies. i also inevitably install the skull cavern elevator because i hate everything about skull caverns. this is all for the best though because it keeps me from playing SDV every minute of every day forever and ever. i end up doing one perfection run every 2 years
Which video game character do you most identify with (and why, if you like)?
Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.
probs Maelle from Expedition 33 😭 babygirl..........nightmares.....not knowing what's real.............making Bad Choices because she loves Verso too much to let him go
