As she kicked her way towards the surface, her fingers and toes lengthened, a thin membrane webbing together in between them, and thin slits opened up into gills on either side of her torso. Her ribs ached, body working overtime to suck in water through her shirt.

In real life, cats don’t recite fairy tales or ride the tram. In real life, cats don't talk.

The only time her mother ever cooked was when a person had passed on and someone needed to speak with the dead.

She told herself she could beat the curse if only she was patient. The 27 Club got the impatient ones.

I learned how to bend light from my mother.

A scream into the night was nothing unusual in this strange and terrible place, the belly of the São José slave ship.

We gather every day to remember. We gather every day to keep her alive. Then we decide to bring her back to life.

The first time my wings manifested Parrain beat me black and blue.

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Ciro Faienza presents Jane Yolen’s “Questions on Re-reading Oz”. https://strangehorizons.podbean.com/mf/web/5mcfvg/Strange-Horizons-20180723-p.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I come from an arboreal people who have, since the old times, conducted their lives on trees. I was born on a branch of a banyan tree, cradled among the sinews of its prop roots when I was a child.