Size / / /

Watergate

is a quaint bedtime story

Why send minions

on clandestine capers

when I can move like air

through my rival's HQ

caressing surveillance cameras

and blowing whisper kisses

in security guards' ears

I'm too old to run for president

but identity theft has knocked off a few years

I'm supermodel thin

and the body suit I wear

(bandages are HMO-shabby)

adds additional firmness

No cash on cosmetic surgery,

zero time on hair and makeup,

leaves more of me for you, dear voter

A woman president is nothing new,

but an invisible woman president—that's change

My opponents are hesitant

to mention my condition

(no one says "disability")

I am able to infiltrate terrorist tunnels—

my foreign policy platform—

but a fix for the economy, alas, remains

invisible.


Karen A. Romanko has seen over 100 of her poems and short stories published in venues such as Aberrant Dreams, Ideomancer, Lone Star Stories, The Pedestal Magazine, and Full Unit Hookup. She also edits and publishes e-zine Raven Electrick and recently released the trade paperback anthology Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic. More of Karen's work is available in the Strange Horizons archive. You can view Karen's website at http://romanko.org/karen. Karen can be reached by email at comments@ravenelectrick.com.



Karen A. Romanko
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 
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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