Ordinary is the assignment.
We don't cover the extraordinary. We cover the parking lot, the break room, the drawer by the sink, and what those places are actually like to live in.
A publication about
the interesting things
hiding in ordinary life.
Otherwise Ordinary started with a simple observation: the stories people actually tell each other are almost never about famous people. They’re about a job someone quit, a house on a street, a couch, a phone call, the price of groceries. We publish those — some reported, some invented, all written like they matter.
What we believe
Nostalgia without flattery.
The past was not better. It was different, and the difference is the story. We keep the boredom and the small embarrassments in.
Fiction and reporting, clearly labeled.
Some of what we publish is invented and some of it is observed. Every piece says which, on the page, without being coy about it.
No engagement bait.
No slideshows, no rage, no headline that withholds the thing it's about. If a story is five paragraphs long, it's five paragraphs long.
The desks
- Reporting
- Fiction & Serials
- Then & Now
- Home & Objects
Written here
Every piece on Otherwise Ordinary is reported, written and edited by us. We don’t take pitches, buy freelance work or run syndicated copy. If a story is here, someone on this masthead went and looked at the thing themselves.
“If it happened to everyone, we want it.”
Good stories.Once a week.
Stories about the ordinary things that mean the most.