Size / / /

(Charm #9 from Practical Thaumaturgy)

Your back's the color of the fields

Dried out for winter; or soft bark,

Or trampled snow, bright fish, straw, clay,

Slate, stone, a wild hill in the dark.

Your eye is yellow as the moon

At the horizon; gray as foam,

Or green or copper as some cold

Woodland where silent hunters roam.

I see I fill you with contempt.

I cannot prove your feeling wrong.

But understand, at least, that I,

Like you, am not where I belong.




Susannah Mandel has lived for ten years in Boston, two years in France, and several months in Philadelphia. She hopes never to move back to the suburbs. Her favorite hobbies include stories, sunlight, looking at stuff, and going into detail. Please feel free to tell her interesting things.
Current Issue
13 Jul 2026

The guillotine was conceived as swifter, painless, more humane. You touch your throat. You wonder.
Other LIVES Coming Along THE COSMIC DISTANCE LADDER
The shrieking of a thousand prophets and djinn, wailing for a land that was holy once
By: Aimee Ogden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Aimee Ogden's 'Because I Held His Name Like a Key' read by Jenna Hanchey. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠
Friday: Orca and Bird by Anna Chilvers 
Issue 6 Jul 2026
Issue 29 Jun 2026
Issue 22 Jun 2026
Issue 15 Jun 2026
Issue 14 Jun 2026
Not so domesticated: Fungal anxieties about hierarchies of power and labor in SFF 
Strange Horizons
Issue 8 Jun 2026
Issue 1 Jun 2026
Issue 25 May 2026
By: Louis Inglis Hall
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 18 May 2026
Issue 11 May 2026
Load More