#I also want to pivot away from fanart and towards more original art in the future... or at least to different fanart

[tunaf1sk]

I guess this is an announcement post, which is new for me but that I hope will make sense...

Due to real life circumstances and a simple loss of interest on my part I will be putting development of the Blyndeffswap AU on an indefinite hold. This isn't to say that I'll never post about it again, just that it won't be a focus anymore.

This might not be announcement-worthy, but I don't want to leave anyone who followed me for this AU in the dark as to why posts about it have slowed down so much. I greatly appreciate all the comments and asks I have gotten about Blyndeffswap, they've all made me very happy! I just don't have the time or energy to continue it right now. I hope that's understandable.

[oficmag]

Contributor Spotlight: Mimi

Now that Issue #1 is live, we at OFIC Mag are excited to shine a light on some of the amazing contributors from our inaugural issue. We hope you all love them as much as we do!

Today’s spotlight is on Mimi | @pcandaa, who wrote “i want to get away (you make me want to stay)” for Issue #1.

Tell us a bit about yourself!

Wow. Head empty no thoughts. Why is this question so hard? 

By day I work in gender justice (the field that kid-me said I would never enter), and by night I write sapphic and other kinds of queer fiction, mostly romances, but I've been trying to craft a thriller lately, and it's been interesting. Aside from writing, I like playing boardgames with my friends weekly, trying to convince my knees that I can run cross country again like I used to, and listening to history podcasts. I also do art when I have more than two seconds to spare, and I'm still gunning towards being exhibited someday. 

How did you find fandom?

Through Harry Potter, in 2006. I used to lurk on a website called harrypotterfanfiction.com (which afaik is being imported into AO3 now). Then I discovered fanfic.net, and then later AO3. 

I started posting fanfic on AO3 for Jane the Virgin in 2016, and wrote fics for All For One (the webseries—go check it out it's cool!) and some other small, niche fandoms. 

What fandom are you in now and what brought you here?

I currently almost exclusively read Supercorp fanfic and do very little else, and I hate to say it, but racism brought me here—I adore Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, but fandom is never really a safe space for fans of colour, and the casual racism implicit in many LoK fics threw me off and stopped me from being able to read most fanfic for it. 

I wanted to continue reading decent femslash, but without having to deal with the racism, hence my pivot to a fandom with two white women placed front and centre. I don't watch Supergirl and never intend to, but I've found several amazing AUs that I've enjoyed deeply over the years, though I'll always wish we had the same energy for non-white characters. 

My experience with ATLA and LoK threw me off participating too deeply in fandom in general, especially for shows with women of colour, so I lurk and enjoy fanart and not much else.

What’s your favorite book of all time and what do you love about it?

I don't think I have a singular favourite book of all time, but a few highlights over the past couple of years would be: 

The Sea and Stars Trilogy by SD Simper: Absolutely sizzling chemistry between the leads of the likes I have rarely read before. Plot is also gripping AF. SD Simper can really tell a story. 

Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir: Gideon is possibly my favourite protagonist ever, she's hilarious and mouthy and butch and unabashedly loves women—I want more characters like her! 

The Red Country by jilbrais (Ao3): A stunning prequel to Alice in Wonderland with a gutwrenching story between the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen—I'd highly recommend it, the prose is beautiful and the story is incredible. 

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers: That book was written for me, about me, and that is all I have to say about that. More books about black girls that include whimsy and dreams and the agonising reality of unrealised dreams please! I would absolutely read anything else Morgan Rogers writes. 

I also really enjoy Jenny Frame's romance novels, she writes in a way that is so earnest and honest, and she handles narratives of grief and loss extremely well. She's also really good and amping up chemistry between her leads, and of course, each of her books has a butch lead in it, which I absolutely adore.

What projects are you working on right now?

I had a whole thing planned to write more fiction this year and I've since been swamped with research projects and prepping a chapter of my thesis for publication. Some Real World Stuff right there bleargh. Ideally I'd be working on the following original fiction projects: 

See Me In Hindsight: A sapphic Ocean's 11 retelling. Featuring cheek and chaos and some family drama thrown in for fun. 

Tightrope: A woman waits for her spouse to return, only to find that they've brought their dead twin's mistress to the house. The two women tiptoe around each other, each believing the other to be the enemy, but the true enemy in the house is not who they think. 

Untitled Spite Novel: In 2011, a 16-year old is overwhelmed by academic pressure and confides in her teacher. As they begin to grow closer as mentor and mentee, and eventually into something less and less appropriate, the girl is plagued by visions of violence, and the unyielding spectre of a woman with no face. 

Untitled Supernatural Romance: Mehreen Kazi is one of the most powerful vampires in Osower and the High Princess of the Osower Council, but she's broken one of the cardinal tenets of the city: no sex with the humans you feed on. But she can't let the girl go, even though she doesn't know who she is and hasn't seen her face, because the dampners at the feeding house prevent her from doing so. Aisha Isa is a mage who's been searching for the secret to immortality, and finds a temp job PA-ing for Mehreen Kazi, who might have the answer she's been looking for. In the meantime, she's part-timing as a feeder for a high-profile mystery client who's broken one of the city's cardinal rules with her, but Aisha's already too hooked on her to care. As the two of them bicker and clash against each other during the day, unknowingly loving each other at night, Mehreen's sister Mira lurks in the background, waiting for just the right moment to see her fall.

What are your aspirations as a writer, big picture or small?

To experiment with different genres and improve my prose style. I'd love to get published one day, indie or big house doesn't matter, and as a writer based outside the Global North, I know my odds are absolutely stacked against me! But I also want to continue to find joy in creating stories and learning to craft them better and better (and I really, really want Untitled Spite Novel out in the world someday). 

If you could give one piece of advice to beginning writers, what would you tell them?

Write what you like! Write badly! I made this mistake as a young writer because I was too much of a perfectionist to write as often as I needed to. It wasn't till I was in my early 20s that I actually learned to tell a good story because I was writing pretty much anything that came to mind, whether it was good or not, whether I completed it or not. 

The more you write, the more you'll understand your own process, the more you'll learn about what to do and what not to do, and the kind of stories that matter to you. Don't think that your stories don't matter just because you don't see other people telling them. They will always matter. Always remember that.

THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF THE OFIC FAMILY, MIMI! WE’RE SO THRILLED TO SHARE YOUR WORK WITH THE WORLD.