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Letter from the Editor
18 November 2025

“I don’t think anybody ever knows what another person means when they speak, frankly. It’s more than translation, it’s just throwing yourself into the dark.”
Anne Carson for The Paris Review in April 2024.

Ok Magazine is a multilingual literary net-magazine that prioritizes emerging artists interested in translation, linguistics, and literature. Ok publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, and more in multiple languages, including Spanish, English, French, Korean, Dutch, and German. We host both writers and translators with the goal that each piece will be published in at least 2 languages. Some pieces are written and translated by the same author, while others are translated by one of our translators.

Ok Magazine was inspired by the small restaurant “Ok Chinese Food” in Los Angeles that I drove by regularly as a child. Each time, my dad and I smiled, endeared by the possible translation error, assuming a restaurant would not intend to brand their food as just “ok”.

Unknown to us, “ok” is the most widely understood word in the world, making it somewhat notorious, regardless of its mild meaning. “Ok Chinese Food” could be thoughtfully welcoming the large population of non-English speakers in LA, or it could be declaring itself as the notorious strip mall restaurant it is, at least to me.

Ok Magazine intends to embark on the journey of translation errors and misunderstandings in an effort to connect writers, translators, and readers across languages. We want to throw ourselves into the dark twice over. Once, when the initial writer embarks on their piece, translating from thought to page, and once again when the translator interprets each idea, word, and sensation into another language altogether.

Ok believes that the piece will tell us what it needs and what will become of it, that it is the job of the artist to merely bring that to fruition. With that in mind, Ok matches writers and translators to listen to each piece, expand it into multiple languages, and give it a life that can be re-interpreted. In some cases, writers and translators may collaborate as a team, expanding a single piece into multiple languages if desired.

Mia

Want to write for Ok? Send us an email or look here for more information about submissions.

Ok was created by Mia Carrillo, a writer and editor from Los Angeles, CA. You can find more about her here.

original restaurant in Los Angeles on Colorado Blvd

the making of Ok

second ok establishment in Los Angeles on Figueroa St

the use of “ok” in various languages

third ok establishment in Los Angeles on Van Nuys Blvd