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Direct link: October poetry (MP3)

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

  • “Tatakai“ by Shweta Narayan read by Shweta Narayan. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about Shweta here.
  • “How a Mermaid spends her winters“ by Marchell Dyon read by Julia Rios. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about Marchell here.
  • “Slouching Towards the Garden“ by Margarita Tenser read by Ciro Faienza. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about Margarita here.
  • “Ivy“ by April Grant read by April Grant. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about April here.
  • “Memento Mori“ by Richard Prins read by Richard Prins. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about Richard here.



April Grant lives in Boston. Her backstory includes time as a sidewalk musician, real estate agent, public historian, dishwasher, and librarian. Among her hobbies are biking and ruin appreciation.
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.
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.
Marchell Dyon is from Chicago, Illinois. Her work has appeared in many publications in print and online. Her most recent work has appeared in Full of Crow, Rainbow Rose Ezine, Blue Lake Review (June 2013), A Little Poetry, and Medusa's Kitchen.
Margarita Tenser is a Ukrainian-born Aussie with a large comic book collection, an intense relationship with punctuation, and a pixie haircut, provided the pixie was dragged through a hedge backwards. She has previously had poetry published in Voiceworks and the UTS Anthology.
Richard Prins received his MFA degree in poetry from New York University. Now he divides his time between managing a building in Brooklyn and consulting for an entertainment company in Dar es Salaam. His work appears in Los Angeles Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, Redivider, and THRUSH Poetry Journal.
Shweta Narayan was born in India and has lived in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Scotland, and California. They feel kinship with shapeshifters and other liminal beings. Their short fiction and poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, Mithila Review, Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana, We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology, An Alphabet of Embers: An Anthology of Unclassifiables, Lightspeed: Queers Destroy Fantasy, and Clockwork Phoenix 3, among others. Shweta was the Octavia Butler Memorial Scholarship recipient at Clarion 2007 and was shortlisted for the 2010 Nebula Awards.
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.
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