She found the animal women in March of 1968 on the day the Little Sandy thawed, which was the same day Mrs. Whittson made her read in front of the entire sixth grade class. The words on the page piled up like dogs fighting in her throat. Candis rolled them in her mouth, syllable by syllable: And if you wrong us, shall we not re-venge? But nothing came out, and Mrs. Whittson laughed with everyone else.

I want to talk about a contrast I noticed between the cultures of the two different events.

all words must be gone / by the high tide's turn / or be declared false, anathema

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Anaea Lay presents Alix E. Harrow's "The Animal Women (Part 1)."