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 to do our best to recognize our friends, peers, and enemies (you know who you are), who are doing amazing work writing and publishing wonderful stories as the backbone of the literary world.
Without further ado, let's get weird...
First up, our Wisp Award for best 100-word drabble. Here are your nominees:
(Rat Bag Lit)
(Black Hare Press)
(Dragon Soul Press)
(100 Foot Crow)
(Rat Bag Lit)
And the winner is... 🥁
Next, is our Glimmer Award for best Flash Fictions story up to 1,000 words. Your final nominees are as followed:
(Flash Frog)
(TL;DR Press)
(Sci-fi Shorts)
(Radon Journal)
(The Molotov Cocktail)
And the winner is... 🥁
We now enter the Force Field of Foofaraw for the next two premier categories covering the sweet spot of what we here at Foofaraw publish. AKA these are the stories we are most jealous of not being able to publish ourselves...
First from the Force Field is the Fragment Award for best Short Story between 1,000 - 2,500 words. The nominees for Fragment are:
(Tales Of Galactic Pest Control)
(State of Matter)
(InkdPub)
((s)crawl)
(WolfSinger Publications)
And the winner is... 🥁
Then the second from the Force Field is our Phantasm Award for best Medium-length Short Story between 2,500 - 5,000 words. And the nominees are...
(Dark Horses)
(MetaStellar)
(Tales of the Fantastic)
(Podcastle)
(JayHenge)
And the winner is... 🥁
Oh boy! How exciting was that?! Let's take a second to cool off and catch our breathe as we exit the Force Field —but stay buckled in as we are only halfway through!
Next, is our Chronicle Award for best Longer Short Story between 5,000 - 7,500 words. And your nominees:
(Fiction on the Web)
(Uncharted)
(Porter House Review)
(The Writer's Workout)
(Fiction on the Web)
And the winner is... 🥁
Our last story award is the hefty Magnum Award for best Novelette between 7,500 - 15,000 words. And here are your nominees:
(GigaNotoSaurus)
(Home Planet News)
(Fusion Fragment)
(JayHenge)
(Sky Pony Press)
And the winner is... 🥁
Next, is our Federmeister* Award for the editor that was best to work with, as nominated by authors published in 2025. And your nominees:
And the winner is... 🥁
And finally, the grand finale, the big shebang: the Wunderkammer** Award for the best magazine of the year, as nominated by short story authors:
And the winner is... 🥁
Well, that's all folks! It's been an absolute pleasure. Please join us again next year at some point and time so we can do it all again—and keep your eyes peeled for The Foofs: Best of Strange Fiction (2025) anthology featuring the winners and more! Coming to a bookshop near you soon!
Until next time... FOOFIE and THE FLOOF, signing off.