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Is a small beast with a body of Celtic knots. Ears twitching
soft as a doe's.
Lively-eyed, narrow-eyed. His nose is long and
wide, wide open.

My prayer to him is simple at first. I want what I want
and want it back.
But vain hours later I'm inventing prayers of smoke
and mirrors,

knotted into silver lace. They rise into the tarnished sky
sparking and weaving
all ears, all eyes, all long, long nose. Please be seeking, be
finding, be bringing

it back to my hand, oh beast, how my hands then will stroke
those ears, bless
those bright eyes, how I will delight that nose with delicious
tidbits, offerings

of thanks. How I will make a pet of you place you in my silken
cage lined with your new
velvet bed. How when you curl there I will say I want what I want
and I want it. You.




Neile Graham's life is full of writing and writers. She is a graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop and currently serves as their workshop director. Her poetry collections are Seven Robins, Spells for Clear Vision, and Blood Memory, and a spoken word CD, She Says: Poems Selected and New.
Current Issue
31 Mar 2025

We are delighted to present to you our second special issue of the year. This one is devoted to ageing and SFF, a theme that is ever-present (including in its absence) in the genre.
Gladys was approaching her first heat when she shed her fur and lost her tail. The transformation was unintentional, and unwanted. When she awoke in her new form, smelling of skin and sweat, she wailed for her pack in a voice that scraped her throat raw.
does the comb understand the vocabulary of hair. Or the not-so-close-pixels of desires even unjoined shape up to become a boat
The birds have flown long ago. But the body, the body is like this: it has swallowed the smaller moon and now it wants to keep it.
now, be-barked / I am finally enough
how you gazed on our red land beside me / then how you traveled it, your eyes gone silver
Here, I examine the roles of the crones of the Expanse space in Persepolis Rising, Tiamat’s Wrath, and Leviathan Falls as leaders and combatants in a fight for freedom that is always to some extent mediated by their reduced physical and mental capacity as older people. I consider how the Expanse foregrounds the value of their long lives and experience as they configure the resistance for their own and future generations’ freedom, as well as their mentorship of younger generations whose inexperience often puts the whole mission in danger.
In the second audio episode of Writing While Disabled, hosts Kristy Anne Cox and Kate Johnston welcome Farah Mendelsohn, acclaimed SFF scholar and conrunner, to talk all things hearing, dyslexia, and more ADHD adjustments, as well as what fandom could and should be doing better for accessibility at conventions, for both volunteers and attendees.
Wednesday: Under the Eye of The Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda 
Friday: The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinan Antoon 
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
Issue 17 Feb 2025
Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
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