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Direct link: August poetry (MP3)

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

  • “Note to the Caretaker" by Lisa Bellamy, read by Ciro Faienza. You can read the full text of the poem and more about Lisa here.
  • “Helmets of the Future" by Jessy Randall, read by Julia Rios. You can read the full text of the poem and more about Jessy here.
  • “A Universe Collided" by Charles Bane, Jr., read by Diane Severson Mori. You can read the full text of the poem and more about Charles here.
  • “A Pantheon of Madnesses" by Cory O'Brien, read by Cory O'Brien. You can read the full text of the poem and more about Cory here.



Charles Bane, Jr. is the American author of The Chapbook (Curbside Splendor, 2011) and Love Poems (Aldrich Press, 2014). The Huffington Post described his work as "not only standing on the shoulders of giants, but shrinking them." The creator of the Meaning Of Poetry Series for The Project Gutenberg Project, he is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida. His website is www.charlesbanejr.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.
Cory O'Brien is a writer, primarily of words, but also computer code and faces. He has an MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the author of Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology. He retells mythology and his life story at bettermyths.com.
Jessy Randall’s poems and stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, Nature, and Scientific American. Her most recent book is Mathematics for Ladies: Poems on Women in Science (MIT, 2022). She is a librarian at Colorado College, and her website is http://bit.ly/JessyRandall.
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.
Lisa Bellamy teaches at The Writers Studio. Her chapbook, Nectar, won the Encircle Publications Chapbook Contest. Her work has appeared in Tri-QuarterlyThe Sun, New Ohio Review, Calyx, and PANK, among other publications. She won the Fugue Poetry Prize and received honorable mention in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2007.
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 Mendlesohn, 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.
Friday: The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinan Antoon 
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By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
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By: River
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Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
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