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Direct link: January poetry (MP3)

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Anaea Lay presents poetry from the January issues.

  • “Scythia" by Marinelle G. Ringer, read by Marinelle G. Ringer. You can read the full text of the poem and more about Marinelle here.
  • “Orthography in the Lands of Yahm" by Daniel Ausema, read by Daniel Ausema. You can read the full text of the poem and more about Daniel here.
  • “Retirement" by Samantha Renda-Dollman, read by Julia Rios. You can read the full text of the poem and more about Samantha here.
  • “Meatspace" by David C. Kopaska-Merkel, read by Ciro Faienza. You can read the full text of the poem and more about David here.



Ciro Faienza (pronounced CHEE-roh) is an American/Italian national. He has acted on stages and screens throughout Texas and Massachusetts, and his work as a filmmaker has shown at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Dallas Hub Theater, and the National Gallery, London. His fiction is featured in numerous publications, including Daily Science Fiction and Futuristica, Vol 1. His short story "J'ae's Solution" was a top finalist in PRI's 3-Minute Futures Contest. You can see his visual artwork at his web gallery, Postmedium.
Daniel Ausema is a writer and poet from Colorado. His poetry has previously appeared in Strange Horizons, and his fiction has appeared in many publications. He is also the creator of the steampunk-fantasy serial fiction project Spire City. He has a background in experiential education and is a stay-at-home dad.
David C. Kopaska-Merkel won the 2006 Rhysling Award for a collaboration with Kendall Evans, edits Dreams & Nightmares magazine, and has edited Star*Line and several Rhysling anthologies. His poems have appeared in Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. A collection, Some Disassembly Required, winner of the 2023 Elgin Award, is available from him at jopnquog@gmail.com.
Julia Rios is a queer, Latinx writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator whose writing has appeared in Latin American Literature Today, Lightspeed, and Goblin Fruit, among other places. Formerly a fiction editor for Strange Horizons, their editing work has won multiple awards, including the Hugo Award. Julia is a co-host of This is Why We're Like This, a podcast about how the movies we watch in childhood shape our lives, for better or for worse. They've narrated stories for Escape Pod, Podcastle, Pseudopod, and Cast of Wonders. Find them on Twitter as @omgjulia.
M. G. Ringer has published poems in The Ontario Review, Cimarron Review, Mudfish, The Hudson Review, and Visions International: The World Journal of Illustrated Poetry, among others.  Ringer's fiction has appeared in First Intensity, Phoenix, and The Midland Review.  Non-fiction publications have concerned everything from American English (International Journal of the Humanities) to Ezra Pound's Cantos (Paideuma).  Ringer has been invited to perform poetry at a number of venues—including the Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village, New York City, and AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island—as well as deliver scholarly findings at several symposia of the Jack London Society, the American and Popular Culture Associations, the Second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, and the Oxford Round Table.
Samantha Renda-Dollman lives in South Africa with her husband, two rabbits and two cats. When not writing poetry or shopping for euro boardgames, she's usually doing something entomological. Or watching crusty old sci-fi movies.
Current Issue
20 Jan 2025

Strange Horizons
Surveillance technology looms large in our lives, sold to us as tools for safety, justice, and convenience. Yet the reality is far more sinister.
Vans and campers, sizeable mobile cabins and some that were barely more than tents. Each one a home, a storefront, and a statement of identity, from the colorful translucent windows and domes that harvested sunlight to the stickers and graffiti that attested to places travelled.
“Don’t ask me how, but I found out this big account on queer Threads is some kind of super Watcher.” Charlii spins her laptop around so the others can see. “They call them Keepers, and they watch the people that the state’s apparatus has tagged as terrorists. Not just the ones the FBI created. The big fish. And people like us, I guess.”
It's 9 a.m., she still hasn't eaten her portion of tofu eggs with seaweed, and Amaia wants the day to be over.
Nadjea always knew her last night in the Clave would get wild: they’re the only sector of the city where drink and drug and dance are unrestricted, and since one of the main Clavist tenets is the pursuit of corporeal joy in all its forms, they’ve more or less refined partying to an art.
surviving / while black / is our superpower / we lift broken down / cars / over our heads / and that’s just a tuesday
After a few deft movements, she tossed the cube back to James, perfectly solved. “We’re going to break into the Seattle Police Department’s database. And you’re going to help me do it.”
there are things that are toxic to a bo(d)y
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
  In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Michelle Kulwicki's 'Bee Season' read by Emmie Christie Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.
Wednesday: Motheater by Linda H. Codega 
Friday: Revising Reality: How Sequels, Remakes, Retcons, and Rejects Explain The World by Chris Gavaler and Nat Goldberg 
Issue 13 Jan 2025
Issue 6 Jan 2025
By: Samantha Murray
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 23 Dec 2024
Issue 16 Dec 2024
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
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