A STRANGE OBJECT

A Strange Objectis an imprint based in Austin, Texas, dedicated to publishing surprising, heartbreaking fiction alongside thoughtful works of nonfiction. We're talking about books that haunt and inspire us—big work that engulfs, that takes risks, that bucks form, that builds warm dwellings in dark places.

Home

Welcome to A Strange Object

Hello! You may know us as the Austin-based independent press focused on fiction. In 2019 we joined the nonprofit publishing house Deep Vellum as an imprint.

We are thrilled to be able to continue our mission of publishing original voices in fiction (as well as the occasional stellar memoir or brilliant but hard-to-categorize nonfiction) alongside Deep Vellum's powerful list of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, graphic novels, photography, and translated literature. Deep Vellum's works in translation span fifty-three languages, and its authors hail from seventy-five countries. DV actively invests in creating and supporting a diverse literary culture here in Texas. We couldn't be prouder to join such a cosmopolitan, humane, and visionary organization.

Now to the books!

Out from A Strange Object in April 2024, Lily Meyer's Short War brings together a rapturous teenage love story set in Chile, the hunt for the author of an eye-opening literary detective story, and a complex reckoning with American political intervention in South America.

Dwyer Murphy calls the novel "a deeply felt portrait of youth and longing, and also a geopolitical barnburner of a story that spans continents and generations." Idra Novey celebrates Short War as "astute and absorbing," and describes it "a complex novel about adolescence and the insidious role of the United States in the Pinochet dictatorship." Danielle Evans says, “This debut introduces an important and accomplished new literary voice.”

Coming up in May 2024 we have Little Seed, an experimental memoir by Wei Tchou. A riveting narrative of Tchou's immigrant upbringing combined with a gently meditative field guide to ferns, the book poses big questions about assimilation and identity. Little Seed asks: What does it mean to be Chinese? What does it mean to love someone well? And what exactly is a fern?

Sam Cohen declares, "Little Seed is what I want the future of literature to be."

\ \ \

At A Strange Object we believe in the subtle art of subtraction. We're pressing mute on the noise of publishing and increasing the signal and the strange.

Sign up for updates. Check back often. Trust us. We trust you.

And hello.

[Side note: Writers, we love you, but we are not accepting unsolicited manuscripts at this time.]