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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 of Strange Horizons.

  • "A Modern Prometheus" by Lynette Mejía, read by Julia Rios. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about Lynette, here.
  • "my father as a sonnet on the human meaning of inhuman stars" by Andrew Brenza, read by Anaea Lay. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about Andrew, here.
  • "All That Her Mother Left Her" by John W. Sexton read by Julia Rios. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about John, here.
  • "Abduction" by Laura Madeline Wiseman, read by Laura Madeline Wiseman. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about Laura, here.
  • "St. Patrick and the Snakes" by Jane Yolen, read by Ciro Faienza. You can read the full text of the poem, and more about Jane, here.

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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.
Andrew Brenza lives and writes in the Philadelphia area with his wife and young son. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Shampoo, Glitterpony, Jellyfish, and/or, Sawbuck, and The Scrambler, among others.  He is obsessed with cold seeps, hot vents, and tidal pools.
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.
Jane Yolen writes poetry for both children and adults. She is a past winner of the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Rhysling award for a short poem, Dwarf Star Award for poems under ten lines, as well as being named by the Association as a Grand Master of science fiction and fantasy poetry. She is a frequent poetry contributor to such genre magazines as Asimov’s, Mythic Delirium, and Goblin Fruit. She has over 370 books published, a huge number of them poetry. Her books have won the Caldecott, the Christopher Medal, the Jewish Book Award, and two of her stories were Nebula winners. Three of her books won the Mythopoeic Award. Last year, she was named a winner of the New England Public Radio’s Arts and Humanities Award. And her Skylark Award set her good coat on fire.
John W. Sexton lives in Ireland and is the author of five previous poetry collections, the most recent being The Offspring of the Moon (Salmon, 2013). His sixth collection, Futures Pass, is due from Salmon in 2015. In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.
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.
Laura Madeline Wiseman's debut book of poetry is Sprung (San Francisco Bay Press). She is also the author of six chapbooks, including 2012's Unclose the Door. She is the editor of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press). She has a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she teaches creative writing. Stranger Still, a new anthology of her alien-themed poems, will be available in October 2013, and can be pre-ordered through Finishing Line Press.
Lynette Mejía writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror prose and poetry from the middle of a deep, dark forest in the wilds of southern Louisiana. Her work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, and others, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Rhysling Award, and the Million Writers Award. You can find her online at www.lynettemejia.com.
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.
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