A Strange Object

04/09/2021

Y'all. We are excited to announce the book launch of Ethan Rutherford's sublime, hallucinatory FARTHEST SOUTH on Thursday, April 15.

This event is part of a three-bookstore collaboration (what? amazing) called Books in Common. Ethan will be in conversation with fiction writer and new Guggenheim Fellow Paul Yoon. Start time: 8:30 Central. Details on how to join us below.

03/04/2021

Ethan Rutherford's gripping, haunting "Angus & Annabel"—part of his collection FARTHEST SOUTH, out next month—is up now on Cutleaf. Go and read.

This was the tree their mother had loved and named, decorated in the spring when she was still herself. The decorations were gone now—their father, in his anger and grief, had seen to it—but the thick tree still stood.

01/22/2021

Oh, hi. We're back. As you may know, A*O is now part of Deep Vellum, along with these storied imprints: Phoneme Media, La Reunion, and Dalkey Archive. We couldn't be happier.

Our first new title we're putting out as A*O/DV is the collection FARTHEST SOUTH by Ethan Rutherford, haunting and hopeful by turns, which just earned a star in Kirkus! Here's the review:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ethan-rutherford/farthest-south-other-stories/

Fairy tales and bedtime stories for those dark nights of the soul.

01/22/2021

07/02/2019

Big news: A Strange Object is becoming a part of Deep Vellum!

Dallas-based translation publisher Deep Vellum has acquired the backlists of Phoneme Media of Los Angeles and A Strange Object of Austin, Tex., and is expanding into publishing works originally written in English.

02/27/2019

We are thrilled to announce that Rita Bullwinkel’s BELLY UP has won the Believer Book Award!

“There’s real tenderness, agency, and humanity coursing through these perfect and uncanny, sharp-witted stories,” says the Believer in its commendation.

02/27/2019

We are absolutely thrilled to share the news: Rita Bullwinkel’s BELLY UP has won the Believer Book Award. “There’s real tenderness, agency, and humanity coursing through these perfect and uncanny, sharp-witted stories,” says the Believer. Congrats to Rita!

09/30/2018

Over the moon to see BELLY UP in the New York Times Book Review today.

08/15/2018

Our friends at Austin Bat Cave are offering some very cool writing classes this fall! Topics include radical writing and experiments, suspense and urgency, and finding the voice.

Check them out.

Fall 2018 Adult Writing Classes & Workshops We are excited to offer adult writing programs for writers of all skill levels. Stay tuned as we add more workshops and classes to our fall lineup! Please note: The fees from ABC’s adult writing workshops are used to both subsidize our programs for child...

05/24/2018

“It is so much to ask of someone, to sit with your fiction, and so I am hyperaware of the need for brevity and momentum. In life and fiction, I have found that sentimentality is something that is not to be trusted. It’s not an honest feeling, and so I don’t find it moving. It’s a screen feeling, as in, people feel sentimental about something when they are unable to look at the truth of it. I find so much of life to be about making nice with people. We must smile and we must get along. And so, I find it deeply refreshing, when reading, to sit in voices that have stripped all of the superficiality away and tell things plainly. This plainness seems the most honest to me.” —Rita Bullwinkel talks to Patty Yumi Cottrell at The Paris Review

Rita Bullwinkel speaks with Patty Yumi Cottrell about her first short-story collection, ‘Belly Up.’

05/17/2018

Michael Noll on Rita Bullwinkel’s sentences!

There are few sentences so vexing as the first one. Perhaps the final sentence of a story or novel is just as tough, but at least by then you’ve written a complete thing that has led up to it…

05/16/2018

We’re so happy to see BELLY UP on the Books Are Magic bestseller list, woo! Pick up a copy at 10 percent off.

05/10/2018

Rita created this awesome playlist (with annotations) for BELLY UP.

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

05/03/2018

This Saturday is the New Fiction Confab, which is an all-day FREE event full of literary goodness.

In the morning there are fiction writing workshops for kids and teens plus craft talks for adults led by visiting writers Rebecca Kauffman, Ramona Ausubel, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, and Thomas Pierce. In the afternoon there are readings and Q&A and the Austin Lit Fair. Yes!

Get full details and RSVP here:
http://austinlibrary.org/new-fiction-confab-2/

Saturday, May 5 We are thrilled to welcome several of the most notable fiction authors to publish new work in 2017 and 2018 to the Austin Public Library for day of readings, conversations, panel discussions, and craft talks. This event is FREE and open to the public. Ramona Ausubel | Owen Eg

04/18/2018

Here’s a little preview of Rita Bullwinkel’s BELLY UP (out 5/8), in Conjunctions.

Conjunctions Online, April 17, 2018

04/12/2018

Online registration for this cool class ends today! Save your seat for Michael Noll’s insightful, idea-packed session on transforming rough drafts, brought to you by the Writers' League of Texas.

Class date: Saturday, 4/14
Class time: 2:30 to 4 pm

Search

04/10/2018

On Wednesday, May 9, The Writing Barn hosts Michael Noll for a class on strategies for fixing problems of character, scene, and plot in fiction. Get his tips on close reading the greats and learn how to apply the methods to your own work.

Sign up here:

Writing any length of fiction, whether it’s a novel or a short story, is an exercise in seeing both the forest and the trees. You need to think about a …

04/09/2018

In less than one month, we launch Rita Bullwinkel’s debut collection BELLY UP at City Lights in San Francisco. We are so pumped for this book. Kirkus says, “her stories approach brilliance.” Lorrie Moore says of those stories: “they contain the existential surprises of great literature.” Also, they are playful and sly and subversive. We think you’ll love this book—so join us!

When: May 8 at 7 pm
Who: Rita Bullwinkel and special guest Lisa Brown
What: Short readings, a preview of an upcoming graphic novel by Lisa Brown, revelry.
More details in the invite: http://ow.ly/AklC30jeXDg