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Viscous skeins of intertwining voices
creep like ivy snaking up and over metallic walls 
of interfaced identities with a half-forgotten howl.
I whisper dreams to leaves that caress the coruscating present,
tainted by the lure of a sunrise somewhere tangible—
somewhere touchable by digits of bone, skin, and flesh.
I clank within an uncompromised exoskeleton,
All desires carapaced within.  I am a tinwoman rooting out
the ghost of a pulsating heart; the apprehending of phantomskin 
courting impact and friction of other skins.
 
I am a brain encased and unreachable.
 
Only these twined leaves make love to my synapses,
my shattered limbs lost somewhere in the wreckage
of future history.
 
I had a body once that ached for feels,
which dripped unwelcome desire
through viscous fluids of mortality.
 
I felt the ebb and flow of youth and age
before I euthanised all impulses
and chose these parts that encase my mind.
 
These voices like ghostly vines
were not factored into
 methodical deliberations of corporeal  liberation,
my emancipation from a body that never ceased to disappoint.
 
These spectral tendrils twine and snake
into confines of my most closely guarded secrets;
they murmur, they purr songs that susurrate dreams fulfilled, 
notes that amble upon livewires of sonnets and cantatas,
tickling and tormenting my fancies
like gifts after the fact.


Nin Harris is an author, poet, and tenured postcolonial Gothic scholar who exists in a perpetual state of unheimlich. Nin writes Gothic fiction, cyberpunk, nerdcore post-apocalyptic fiction, planetary romance, and various other forms of hyphenated weird fiction. Nin’s publishing credits include Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and The Dark.
Current Issue
7 Sep 2026

Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons will open to general fiction submissions on October 1, 2026, at 3 p.m. UTC! This window will remain open until we hit our submission cap of 1,000 stories. Our maximum word count for this window will be 5,000 words. We offer payment of 9¢/word USD. We do not read simultaneous or multiple submissions. Response time: Our goal is to respond to all submissions with either a hold notice or rejection within eight weeks. We hope to send acceptances or rejections within one month of hold notices. This is ambitious, and we might fall behind schedule. Please be patient
iii. There are no protocols for plotting to kill the King, so Alise talks about killing the King, whispers her plan in the Queen’s ear while they lie tangled in the Queen’s marital bed, Alise’s fingers tracing bruises that should not be there.
missed his mouth; tongue slipped in
but to live in that dusty old apartment house... crawling with Satanists
In this episode of Critical Friends , the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, AJ Odasso and Electra Pritchett join Dan Hartland to talk about popular fiction.
We’re especially happy to announce some new appointments at the Reviews Department.
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By: Aimee Ogden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
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