Size / / /

Content warning:



the king of water and fish and things
with his iron trident
grasped so tightly
slammed his second fist into the
bedrock of the sea
and I,

sitting up at the lighthouse
cold hands clasped contemplatively
on my knees
and legs dangling over the
churning black deep,

said “don’t you take that tone with me”



Gretchen Tessmer is a writer based in the U.S./Canadian borderlands. She writes both short fiction and poetry (way too much poetry), with work appearing in such venues as Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Cast of Wonders, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, as well as a previous appearance in Strange Horizons.
Current Issue
13 Apr 2026

...fury tongued, we lash the breeze with our foxing song
From my broken streets and crumbling towers; Sterilized my self-haunted hospitals
Every single time, the Skiin™ gave me a rash. I scratched. I scratched so deeply that I clawed through the aug and into my own skin and then I tore out chunks of that too.
Friday: Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures edited by Joey Eschrich and Ed Finn 
Issue 6 Apr 2026
Issue 30 Mar 2026
Issue 23 Mar 2026
Issue 16 Mar 2026
Issue 9 Mar 2026
By: Lio Abendan
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Strange Horizons
2 Mar 2026
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Issue 2 Mar 2026
Strange Horizons
Issue 23 Feb 2026
Issue 16 Feb 2026
Issue 9 Feb 2026
Load More