my experience with OFIC magazine

[miscellanium]

(i edited out my name from the letter but this was a sweet addition to the magazine delivery)
 

i got my physical contributor's copy of ofic mag #4 at the end of january so, as promised, here's my write-up of the overall process i went through from submission to publication. the story was submitted on october 21, 2022, and the acceptance was received on november 18.

first off, i'd like to note that beth and amber (head editor and managing editor respectively) were both very accommodating while still feeling professional. i also had correspondence with hannah, the fiction editor, but that seems to have been mostly limited to the initial acceptance and any further email correspondence. (it's possible hannah was involved with the edits too but since they were all made under the name of "ofic magazine" i don't know who suggested what for most of the notes.) when they sent me the notice that my story had been accepted, they included some basic feedback and proposed edits. this was par for the course with my previous lit mag experience, but they also asked if beth could speak with me about the story before going in depth with the edits - beth said, in the acceptance email, that she had questions about the world-building and wrote that "I know this is unconventional, but I don't want to give you a bunch of off-base edits if my interpretation of certain details is totally wrong. I also don't want to presume I know what's best for the story without having a more holistic understanding of your intentions for it."

while, yes, that's pretty unusual, i was flattered that they accepted the story in the first place instead of being like "okay this is too niche/esoteric, into the slush pile it goes" haha. it was originally written for a friend whose character is featured in the story alongside mine, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of our creative relationship, so it assumed knowledge of several details that had been discussed privately or developed via roleplaying and the like. i did try to expand on some of these details before submitting but clearly not enough - when you spend that much time with a concept/story it can be easy to forget what all would be important for outsiders to know. so beth's request seemed entirely reasonable and it meant a lot to me that they'd accepted the story anyway. the $25 honorarium was sent immediately after i completed the requisite paperwork.

we ended up chatting via discord, where i explained the backdrop of the story and answered any questions she had. she'd originally asked for a zoom/video call but when i said i preferred text chat due to being deaf and all she had no problem working with that. i made it clear i was willing to consider any editorial suggestions but even then when the edits were made (via google docs) there were notes along the lines of "i think [x edit] would be good to help with the pacing, but feel free to ignore my suggestions if you think they don't work." for the most part i felt like the suggested edits were good ones; the few edits that i ignored or handled differently than the suggestion mostly had to do with punctuation or phrasing that would have changed the intended meaning/ambiguity of a given line. i did ask about the title being in latin or english, since i'd submitted it with both as options, but never received a response so i guess the latin-without-translation was fine since that's what got printed.

the editing process was very much a "kill your darlings" experience, haha; i was told that the pacing and structure i originally had would work wonderfully as part of a larger novel, but short stories need to have snappier pacing so it'd be better for me to take out passages where i lingered on the details of my character's travels (walking through chicago, etc). i agreed, along with rearranging the first couple scenes to make the in media res beginning even more so per their suggestions.

it was a pretty tight turnaround, especially with the extent of the edits they were asking for - as mentioned the acceptance was on 11/18, i made contact with beth on 11/19, and we didn't get to the q&a until 11/21. the first round of line edits was sent to me on 11/30 and they were hoping for edits to be completed by 12/9, giving me basically a week to finish going through everything. i crammed most of the revisions into the weekend and did end up asking for an extension to 12/11 because one of the second- or third-round edits was especially challenging for me to address. (i have to thank pendulumscale here for their patience and willingness to let me bounce some ideas off of them without them having read the whole story, lol.) for the record they did say they could give me longer than a week if necessary, but i was able to fit in some editing time while i was at work, haha, so it ended up not being an issue for me. i did keep backup copies of different stages of editing so if/when i revisit the story for a bigger project i have points of comparison that i can use to decide how to handle things. the typeset proof was sent to me on 12/22, final edits were concluded by 12/27, and the issue went live on january 1. all contributors were sent a digital copy of the magazine in three different formats, with the physical copy to follow.

things got a little sticky for me at the end, though i can't really fault the editors. i'd sent in an anonymous ask to their tumblr before acceptances went out, asking whether they could accommodate someone who wanted to use one name in the issue itself but a different one for public-facing stuff like social media posts. the answer was yes, which was a relief to me since i wanted to use my legal name in the publication (all my past formal publications had been under one legal name or another) but use my online pseud for anything else. that way my harassers from the beginning of 2022 would have to pay money if they really wanted to try doxxing me, lol. (by the end of the year the harassers seemed to have largely moved on, but i was advised that it'd be better not to risk it just yet.) i mentioned this to beth during our initial conversation on 11/19 and she said that wouldn't be an issue. however, when previews went live on social media on 12/30, i saw that my legal name had been used so i had to send a quick email to hannah asking if that could be rectified somehow. the solution was to repost the previews with my contribution having no byline at all, legal or pseud. (twitter example here.)

when i asked whether the omission was intentional, the response i got was: "We just cropped out the name from the screenshot, which was simpler and quicker than redoing the typeset proof, which we screenshot from for promotional posts." this was a frustrating answer, given that i'd raised the issue earlier so they should have had time to anticipate the need, but at the same time i did neglect to bring it up again with anyone after the initial mention to beth; i'd thought addressing it with the head editor would have been sufficient but apparently not, especially with the division of labor among editors, so that's on me and i should have been on top of reminding people.

if you anticipate being in a similar situation, definitely keep bringing it up and make sure you get clear communication about how they'll handle it before anything goes live.

that wrinkle aside, my experience was an overall positive one and i'd encourage other people to submit to the magazine - or, if you're feeling especially ambitious, to the press prize they announced recently for novels and novellas.

and if you read the story i wrote, please consider leaving a comment with ofic magazine so they can add it to the comments section of their website! other forms of public review would be nice too :p

the question of switching to a pseud for formal publications is a tough one for me, as is separating my name from my pseud - i don't think i should need to hide my work, which is how it feels to me (no judgement towards others) and people have published way more extreme stuff under their legal names. yeah, there's pen names too, but a lot of times they end up connected to the legal name.... it's a complicated topic for me, though i know some of you have really only ever used pseuds for sharing your work. a lot of it has to do with my upbringing, probably - i grew up in a household where one parent was completing a poetry mfa and shared work under a legal name, and we had a lot of lit mags coming into the house, the new yorker, etc. and the creative writing classes/workshops i took during undergrad had required readings that, as far as i know, were all published under legal names. i entertained the idea of publishing under a pen name a couple times but mostly just because i thought a different name would sound cooler at the time. ended up going with my legal name(s) because i have an ego and it deserves to be fed, lol. this choice was never a problem until last year orz.

for now i think i'll use pseuds for contributions to more obviously controversial projects, but i'd still like to use my legal name for any formal literary publications. i did scrub the direct links on my website to past publications where my name was readily available, including to one of the works i'm most proud of. it's very difficult to find the magazine in question without a direct link now, so on the one hand that makes it harder for harassers to stalk me, but on the other it's also harder for people to, y'know, read it, short of contacting me directly. deeply frustrating that things have to be like this, to say the least. there's not really a right answer for this kind of problem, either. but if you have experience/perspectives you'd like to share, please feel free. i'm also happy to answer questions about the editing process or other parts of my experience with this magazine.

p.s. if you feel you can't afford the cost of the digital issue but you'd really like to read my story, please let me know and i'll see what i can do.