foofaraw

—Rusty Epstein

Hello and welcome to the Human Competency Assessment. Today we'll be using your desperation as free labor to train our A.I. agent for a temporary role which might not actually exist. If you avoid the kaizo blocks—don't hold your breath for feedback, though, please note, this is not a substitute for actual medical advice—you'll be pitted against poorer, even more desperate man-hour fungibles for table scraps and who's a good boy, you're a good boy, sit, now speak, now beg, prole, beg, in an…

Hello hello hello! We missed last weekend due to it also being the beginning of the month and putting out a polished zine (here and QB), plus the Media Guide on Monday was more than enough for one weekend... A lot of fun stuff has been building both in the background and on the site (if you've been paying attention) so that we can have an absolutely delightful season eight when July rolls around.But that doesn't mean we are giving June short shrift at all! We have wonderful story art (and zine…

Entry fee $10 $25 after July 30th Writing period Aug 7 – Aug 16, 2026 Word limit 1,500 – 3,000 words Prompts 3 provided · 2 required Sent by email to participants only Prize pool $225+ minimum 60% of all entry fees Publication Three stories Winners published at foofaraw.press Buy your entry → One entry and one story per person How it works Writers can purchase their entry any time between now and the end of the contest. Each entry purchased equates to one story that writers can submit. All…

💡Read A Bear Walks into a Bar now!Have you ever encountered a bear in real life?I’m in NorCal, and while bears sometimes wander down from the hills to poke around neighborhoods (and snack on the occasional backyard pet), I’ve only seen them at the zoo or on the news.So is the bear not real? Is there some kind of Fight Club thing happening?I really wanted the reader to decide whether the bear was real, but in my mind, he was. I loved the idea of a snarky little bear covered in cherry juice.How…

Being chronically understaffed is a nightmare I can't seem to wake from. Not only did I have to close last night, but here I am, back before dawn, opening. I must have forgotten to lock the back door after closing, because when I walk into the bar, a bear is making its way through the garnishes, one jar at a time.Tart cherry juice—please let it be cherry juice—splatters the top shelf and dribbles down the liquor bottles. Broken glass shimmers across the floor. It looks like a murder scene,…

—Jonathan Borthwick

Better late than never, but it's been a busy, busy beginning of the week and month. June issues for Foofaraw and QB went out, QB announced April CRUMBS winners and our June theme (open for submissions), still diving through new submissions, editing stories, building out the site, bringing on more cartoonists, prepping our third novelette for publication very, very soon, and getting ready to open up contest spots. Safe to say we've been busy out here. There wasn't a weekend edition this past…

Christian dog-owners! You know it’s the end times because you can read the signsso clearly laid out in Revelations. Until the Rapture your loving and loyal petwill surely bring you earthly comfort. But who will tend their soulless souls once Left Behind?You can’t take man’s best friend through those pearly gates, but you can resteasy knowing your sweet puppy is in the land of milk and honey and without a doubtwill be loved and cared for by nice-enough non believers whose experience you can…

The June issue of Foofaraw Zine is here! Download below or read in our purpose built ebook reader. Of course, all stories will be published for free on the web throughout the month, but paid supporters receive a PDF/EPUB with all of the month's stories at the beginning of the month, along with a few other goodies, including the bonus Four-headed Foofaraw. And Patrons get stuff in print!Individual issues are also available for purchase on Weightless books, where you can also subscribe. This…

But not just xylophones. There's the tintinnabulations of Edgar Alan Poetry and the melodious ribs of old-timey cartoon skeletons.And you—yeah you—don't turn that dial! To paraphrase Bill Hicks, there's a purple vein Priapus ditty coming soon. ((As much as I hate Joe Rogan parroting, his errant, approaching-speech-impediment-levels-of-praise for Bill Hicks and Norm Macdonald isn’t without societal benefits.))Greek dick jokes to larboard.First, a confession: I'm musically illiterate. My fault,…

💡Read Religion, the Board Game (Second Edition) now!Would it be safe to say you have opinions on religion?Absolutely, but I try not to be overly vocal about it. Religions and belief systems are fascinating, but I struggle to understand them—or rather, to understand how people choose to behave within their structures.My intention here was to poke some good-natured fun at both religion and board gaming, and I hope I’m not offending anyone in either camp.Based purely on the rules you’ve…

Time passes, and human civilisation is slowly heading towards destruction. Some of the most significant forces in the world are religions, and it is their duty to do what they do best: recruit Earth’s entire population before the inevitable end!In Religion, the Board Game, you play as one of five Religions competing to amass the most Worshippers before the doomsday clock runs out.Game ComponentsInside the box, you’ll find:A circular World Board with spaces for card stacks, the general…

—Ellie Black

A busy Memorial Day weekend of Bottlerock and wine tastings put a bit of a delay on things, but here we are. It does actually look like a pretty great week in TV, music, movies, and comics. I don't want to spoil too much, but there is a lot to be excited about, especially seeing Backrooms follow up Obsession and a new-to-me band called FILM, which knocked their first album completely out of the park.So stick around.📺 Spider-Noir Season 1 — MGM+I don't know why, but I am looking forward to this…

Hello hello hello! If you're paying attention (and/or visiting the site), you might notice a common thread and a few changes. Our home page got a little face lift and we are slowly rolling out new designs for all of the different things we publish. Our Weekend Edition (the thing you are reading right now) has a new look, as does Nick's Anecdotes column, our interviews, media guide, and on and on and on. So if you're reading via email or RSS you might want to click through and enjoy the fruits…

💡Read Plate V now!How long do you think it’d take you to realize the cave was alive?I don’t think I’d ever realize it was alive… Given you’re a chemist yourself, does the ability to describe things in the most unimaginative ways possible lend itself to being a good chemist?Well, we’re taught that every reaction happens for a rational reason, based on well-described, repeatable properties, i.e., no ‘magical thinking’ allowed. When I’m working on an experiment and taking observations down, I…

It was the oddest job interview I’d ever experienced. First of all, we arrived at the lobby as one big group, brought in on bespoke company transport—black vehicles with tinted windows. It rained on the way over, so everyone was wet, shaking out their umbrellas in a rustling like birds’ wings. We took the elevators up in staggered intervals. Filed into a conference room with chairs set up around the perimeter in the shape of an oval. At the center was a desk with a clay ball sitting on top of…

Big changes once again to The Media Guide this week. We've been working on a lot of website improvements to make things a bit more fun and stylish—and a lot more are on the way. If you're reading this via email, you won't really notice a difference, but if you're reading on the web, there are a ton of cool flairs. I beg of you, click around and wander, as there are wonders and sparks of delight hiding around every corner so I'll be keeping the writing short this week so you can check the new…

“Shame on you!” Those are the last words my father said to me. Shouted across 3,600 miles, as the crow flees, a few months before Barbenheimer.He's not dead, mind you, though he may be by the time you read this. Take that, r/LiminalSpace! ((And thanks, “Monster Talk,” for talking to Lana Hall, who name-dropped that subreddit recently.))As soon as I ghosted him (r/ghosting), my old man started haunting me. This is tricky because I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, or even souls. And remember,…

Read H.C.'s story, NO SOLICITORS, now!Do you have any desire to live out in the middle of nowhere?I think it’s no secret that the idea of solitude in nature possesses a strong romantic appeal. There’s a reason that the Wanderer above the Sea of Fog has been used as a bookcover for some of the most seminal works of the nineteenth century, including both Frankenstein and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Wilderness and desolation provide scope for the uncanny and otherwise unimaginable to occur. They also…

Chazz Martin was a former New York City ad man, twice divorced, who’d spent his entire adult life living in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. To those who knew him, he was the epitome of a New York socialite—erudite, debonair, and ruthlessly ambitious—which is why it came as a surprise when he decided to quit the ad game, sell all his possessions, and move cross country to live in an adobe shack in the badlands of the Mojave Desert. Chazz bought a two-story house with dirt floors, which once…

Catch up!Matthew BurbridgeThe story so far:Last issueStart from the beginning

🆕 On the Shelves🤖👧 PragmataDeveloper: CAPCOM Co., Ltd.Publisher: CAPCOM Co., Ltd.Pragmata is a unique, sci-fi action-adventure game from Capcom. Follow Hugh, a member of an ill-fated investigation team, and Diana, a young android, as they navigate a lunar facility taken over by rogue AI in search of a way to Earth.Pragmata has one of the most unique battle systems where you are forced to multitask your way through fights. You, the protagonist daddy figure, have standard weapons with which to…

What was that? Up there, before you scrolled down. Did that say there's a monster at the end of this essay??? Shit no! My pockets and Pokédex are at capacity!!!We need a hero (key of A minor), cuz heroes decapitate monsters, and a decapitated monster is, well, gross, but a lot less threatening. Unless you're spiking a Hyperborean rave with Medusa's head. That's from Pindar the poet, not Pindar the wrestler—whom, coincidentally, was ceremonially beheaded. (Sic and sick.)Noggins aside, keep an…

Read Maureen's story, Jigsaw, now!Are you a big fan of jigsaw puzzles? I don’t have enough time in the day to do them now but I used to enjoy them very much. I found them a relaxing escape from the stress and anxieties of today’s troubled world and there’s something magical about the emergence of a beautiful picture. Did you ever run away as a child?No. I was born and raised in Liverpool and I frequently run back there. I love Anglesey, where I now live but there’s no place on Earth like ‘The…

Mandy hated New Year. It left her feeling desolate, in spite of the whisky and sleeping pills that helped her to function on less harrowing days. It was two years ago, on New Year’s Eve, since her fifteen-year-old son, Charlie, ran away. After a thorough search, full media coverage, and all the usual legal procedures, the police had made no progress and Mandy had given up hope. He’d be seventeen now—no longer a child—and if he were still alive, he’d probably have no use for her.She recalled the…

It's a bit of a rough week in new stuff with the lone exception being the exceptional Friday of new music we had. There are too many albums to even talk about and even more I want to listen to again.But I did my best to get through a few and share a few I thought stood out above the rest. I hope you check them out. They're a lot of fun.We also announced the winners of our inaugural annual awards for strange fiction from other small litmags. You should go check those out. We'll be putting a…

Whatever he negs you on,Go back, and make it worse.William Shaw is a writer from Sheffield, currently living in the USA. His writing has appeared in Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and The Georgia Review. You can find his website at https://williamshawwriter.wordpress.com and his Bluesky at @williamshaw.bsky.social.

Good evening, worms and germs! Please hold your applause until the end. We have 8 wonderful categories to run through, covering 40 different finalists recognizing some of the best short fiction that was published in the year 2025.Our aim with The Foofs is to put a spotlight on "the little guy." With hundreds, if not thousands of litmags, out there in the world, only a few ever really get the attention and recognition they deserve. While we are just another one of those tiny mags, we've set out…