Think about the last fanfic you read that hit you so hard you spent three days living one step to the left of reality. Think about all those times you read a fic and thought, “This is better than most of the traditionally published work I’ve read.” Think about that 20k gorgeously written modern AU with a Hozier lyric for a title that you recommend to everyone new who enters your fandom.

If you’re here, you probably have a deep respect for fanfiction and the work of transformative art. So do we. We believe the skill of creative transformation is just as valuable as origination. However, we acknowledge the shifting landscape of fandom that grows increasingly universal: fanfiction is no longer necessarily defined by its relationship to canon, but in the affordances and patterns of genre. You’re just as likely to find a fake dating AU in a Star Wars fic as you are in historical medieval figure RPF. 

Sometimes you only want to read about your favorite characters falling in love over and over. But sometimes the characters don’t matter as much as the catharsis, and you just want something good to read from an author you trust. That’s where we come in.

OFIC Magazine curates original literary fiction from fanauthors. Quarterly, you’ll have a whole issue of high quality, professionally edited work to read before bed each night, or on your commute to work, or while enduring a whole day of pointless Zoom meetings. Our issues are organized like fanfiction—every piece is tagged and summarized, and every issue contains a letter from the editor in the form of a fic rec post, so you can read what we admire about the pieces we choose. 

We know zines. We know lit mags. We want to combine them, like that old commercial about getting a little chocolate in the peanut butter, a little peanut butter in the chocolate. Zines are part of fan history, limited distribution publications meant to celebrate share the work of a fan community. Lit mags are part of literary history, serial publications of short stories, essays, and poetry centered around the aesthetic of its editors. Where that Venn diagram overlaps is where OFIC resides.

We welcome work that may, in another time, have been referred to as “lemons.” We enjoy everything from smut with emotional resonance to character exploration genfic. We like happy endings, sad ones, bittersweet or ambiguous ones. We do romance; we do heartbreak. We want the dark twisted stuff, the hurt with comfort, the hurt without comfort, the light fluffy “and they were roommates” AUs. We’re not so big on plot. Mostly, we want work that makes us feel things.

So if you vibe with what we’re about, go ahead and send us your work or subscribe.