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.

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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 sixty languages, and its authors hail from seventy-five countries. In addition, 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 this April, Dalia Azim's Country of Origin opens with the city of Cairo on fire, at the dawn of a tumultuous revolution. The novel tells the story of a family separated onto two continents, of their struggles and triumphs as they seek personal and political freedom—as well as the answer to a troubling disappearance. Lara Prescott calls the novel "lyrical, piercing, and powerful." Simon Han says Azim writes with “curiosity and compassion.” Sarah Bird commends Country of Origin for “grab[bing] at both the heart and mind with equal ferocity.”

Coming up in September we have The Traces, by Mairead Small Staid, a ranging inquiry into the seductions of memory and travel, the fragile paradox of desire, and the art of making meaning from a life.

Our spring 2021 title Farthest South, by Ethan Rutherford, is currently a finalist for CLMP's Firecracker Awards. Kirkus gave it a starred review; so did Publishers Weekly! Laura van den Berg says, “Ethan Rutherford is one of our great artists of catastrophe. Drawing on landscapes both mythic—the fairy tale, the ghost story—and domestic, this collection illuminates terrors that feel at once prescient and eternal. Farthest South is a masterpiece.” Rattawut Lapcharoensap on the collection: “Each story is an uncanny revelation, as if Nathaniel Hawthorne had decided to take up residence among us. . . . A brilliant and literally wonderful collection.” Order it here.

We are distributed by Consortium, available under Deep Vellum's listings.

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

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And hello.

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