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Direct link: Poetry (mp3)

This week's podcast features the poetry for the January issues of Strange Horizons.  The first poem is "In the Courts of the Khan," by Lisa Bao, read by Julia Rios.  Second, "Watching for Aliens over the Allegheny," by Karen Weyant, read by Anaea Lay.  Third, "Heat and Sainthood," by Crystal Hoffman, read by Anaeaa Lay.  Finally, "Straw Man," by Sandi Leibowitz, read by Ciro Faienza.

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Anaea Lay lives in Chicago, Illinois where she writes, cooks, plays board games, reads too much, and questions the benevolence of the universe. Her work has appeared in many places including Apex, Penumbra, Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, and Nightmare. She lives online at anaealay.com.
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.
Crystal Hoffman's poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Arsenic Lobster Anthology, WomenArts Quarterly, Redactions, and Whiskey Island. She is co-editor of Rusted Radishes: The Beirut Literary and Arts Review and an aspiring psychologist. Her chapbook Sulphur Water is forthcoming from Hyacinth Girl Press.
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.
Karen J. Weyant's work has appeared in 5 AM, Cave Wall, Copper Nickel, and River Styx. She is the author of two chapbooks: Stealing Dust (Finishing Line Press, 2009) and Wearing Heels in the Rust Belt (winner of Main Street Rag's 2011 Chapbook Contest). "Watching for Aliens over the Allegheny" is her first speculative poem.
Lisa Bao is Chinese-Canadian with a mostly American upbringing. She officially studies linguistics and computer science, and unofficially fiction and poetry, at Swarthmore College.
Sandi Leibowitz has been, among other things, the Sands Point Hag, a psaltery player, a secretary at NY's Museum of Natural History, a fundraising associate, and a school librarian. Her speculative fiction and poetry may be found at Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit, Luna Station Quarterly, and other far-out places.
Current Issue
12 May 2025

You saw her for the first time at your front door, like she wanted to sell you something or convert you. She had light hair and dark eyes, and she was wearing fatigues, which was the only way you knew that your panicked prayers of the last few minutes had not come true. “Don’t freak out,” she said. “I’m you. From—uh, let’s just say from the future. Can I come inside?”
Time will not return to you as it was.
The verdant hills they whispered of this man so apt to sin / chimney smoke was pure as mountain snow compared to him.
Wednesday: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson 
Friday: The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths 
Issue 5 May 2025
Issue 21 Apr 2025
By: Premee Mohamed
Podcast read by: Kat Kourbeti
Issue 14 Apr 2025
Strange Horizons
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Issue 7 Apr 2025
By: Lowry Poletti
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 31 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Mar 2025
Issue 17 Mar 2025
Issue 10 Mar 2025
By: Holli Mintzer
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 3 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Feb 2025
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