Size / / /

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Ciro Faienza presents Mehnaz Sahibzada’s “Ice Pick”.


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Mehnaz Sahibzada was born in Pakistan and raised in Los Angeles. She is a 2009 PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow in Poetry. Her chapbooks, Tongue-Tied: A Memoir in Poems (2012), and Summer Forgets to Wear a Petticoat (2016), were both published by Finishing Line Press. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, such as Moira, The Literary Hatchet, Asia Writes, Strange Cargo, The Rattling Wall, and Pedestal Magazine. In Fall 2016, Mehnaz served as a screener for Claremont Graduate University’s Kate and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards, reviewing hundreds of full-length manuscripts. A high school English teacher, she lives in southern California. To learn more about Mehnaz, visit her website.
Current Issue
18 Sep 2023

Ama’s arm rested protectively around the girl’s shoulder as the giant bird glided above, its head angling right to left. Violet-black wings soared across a cloudless sky, blocking the sun’s midday rays and swathing sections of the village in deep shadow. Given its size, this argentavis was one of her first, but too far above for her to differentiate by name. Even across the distance, Ama could feel its heartbeat synced to hers, their lives intertwined until death.
She is leaving the world that is pink with desire, on her gray cardboard rocket ship.
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