Size / / /

Content warning:


Slow, even, quiet breaths.
He never snored.

I'd caught the perfect man
against all odds. How my friends

had scrambled for the ritual bouquet!
Hunting his warm sleeping hand to hold,

I grasped instead a heavy paw.
One furred toe wore the wedding band

I gave him. Tips of sheathed claws
pricked at my skin.

Deep in his throat,
he growled.



Jenny’s poems and stories have appeared in august Australian and international literary journals and anthologies, as well as Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Cosmos magazine, and multiple Rhysling anthologies. Her latest collection from Pitt Street Poetry is The Alpaca CantosEagle Books published her ghostly middle-grade adventure The Girl in the Mirror in October 2019. She is jennyblackford on Facebook and @dutiesofacat on Twitter. www.jennyblackford.com
Current Issue
3 Aug 2026

I had a daughter and then I didn’t. I woke in the cradle of midnight, shivering from a supernatural cold. I thought at first that she was crying, that she had woken me, like so many midnights before. But there was silence all around me. I sat up on one arm and peered into her crib. She was gone. In her place was wrapped a sallow, horned little boy. His eyes blinked open. I look at him. He looked at me. Changeling, I thought. Then he started to scream. “Why weren’t the windows
The deads are punctual. They arrive exactly when there is nothing left to distract us.
survival is a fungus
In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Amritesh Mukherjee and Abigail Nussbaum join Dan Hartland to talk about literary awards.
Issue 27 Jul 2026
Issue 20 Jul 2026
Issue 13 Jul 2026
By: Aimee Ogden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 6 Jul 2026
Issue 29 Jun 2026
Issue 22 Jun 2026
Issue 15 Jun 2026
Issue 14 Jun 2026
Issue 8 Jun 2026
Issue 1 Jun 2026
Load More