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Need some weird, funny stories in your life? You’re in the right place. Based in Austin, Texas, Space Squid is a free, award-winning hybrid publication featuring eclectic science fiction short stories, bizarro, errata, culture jamming, puzzles, poetry, and whatever else works. Tales that linger in your head. Bizarre short fiction that makes you smile and question your place in the universe. For over a decade, we’ve known it when we’ve seen it and we know you will too.
We’ve been fortunate to win a “Best of Austin” from the Austin Chronicle and publish funny stories from Nicky Drayden (Prey of Gods, Temper), Kelly Luce (Pull Me Under, Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail), Bruce Sterling (Mirrorshades, Islands in the Net, Heavy Weather), Chris Roberson (Clockwork Storybook, Superman, iZombie), Jay Lake (John W. Campbell Award winner), Jennifer Pelland (Nebula nominee), Tony Millionaire (Maakies), Caroline M. Yoachim, William Shakespeare, and lots of other ridiculously talented people. We’re not sure why they tolerate us.
Austin-based sci-fi and humor mag Space Squid is pushing back against the mostly inevitable demise of print media with fistfuls of clay. Tablets, that is.
– WIRED Magazine
It’s true that we caused a bit of a ruckus when we published a special edition in clay. WIRED blogged about us twice and one of the tablets ended up being inducted into Texas A&M’s science fiction collection at Cushing Library, where it nests in climate-controlled comfort, spitting distance from the collected papers of John Donne and George R.R. Martin. For more funny anecdotes and testimonials, please see our About Us page.
Our current weird funny story is highlighted HERE
After all this hype, you might be ready for a story or two. Who are we to stop you? The proof’s in the pudding! Sometimes we publish several flash pieces together as a set; sometimes it’s a web comic and a bizarre poem. If you hunger for more, we recommend you read our Selected E-Stories, which are some of our favorites from the past decade (!) of strange funny tales that we’ve had the honor of flogging.
- THE SMILING MANY-SQUID The Smiling Many-Squid’s judgment would come in the morning and Sand Flea had been up all night painting name symbols on the ceremonial pong-pong balls. He rubbed his eyes and bit his tongue in concentration.
"Police Station Donkey is... done!" He held up the pong-pong ball, turning it under the light to make sure the iron gall ink dried before putting it in the bag with the others. He only needed to finish four more.
The flash you’ll read in Space Squid is rowdy.
– Prof. Michael Allen Chaney, Dartmouth University, “Top 10 Literary Magazines for Surreal Flash Fiction”
But don’t sleep on us
Space Squid is now an ephemeral publication. That means that (with the exception of the Selected E-Stories) work will disappear from the front page whenever a new weird, funny story is published. This is to encourage you, our intrepid reader, to enjoy new work immediately when it appears. This is a publication, dammit, not a library! So carpe that diem and read before the latest story expires.
People were spellbound, engaged, moved, and more. Thanks so much… you killed it.
– Jill Meyers, Lit crawl, texas book festival
Join our Weird Funny mailing list
If you want to be notified whenever new stories appear, we recommend you subscribe to our humble email list. Our email goes out about ten times a year. According to promotion and publicity experts, this is well below the recommended threshold, but it’s also a reflection of the respect and reverence we have for our delightful readers.