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In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Anaea Lay presents Lucy Harlow's “How Pleasant the Red Bloom.”



Lucy Harlow grew up in England and Hong Kong, and currently lives in Philadelphia. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Strange Horizons, Aliterate, Bracken, and others. She is a PhD candidate in the English department at Princeton. Her website is www.lucyharlow.com.
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9 Feb 2026

“I’ve never actually visited the pā before,” she said out loud. “Is this where they gather lāʻī to make the pūʻolo?” she asked. “Yes,” Benny responded, glancing to see where Nanea was pointing. “Here and in other places as well. Many of these ti have been growing for decades now.” She paused for a moment. “I think about all the work you guys do, you know, up in those offices, and I think that all of that work actually starts from right here, in the ground, all covered in the earth and the pōhaku and the ti. Most people don’t even know it, but it all starts right here.
sometime in the night, we heard rocking and knocking and rapping and tapping, a million trillion tiny feet
The triangles bred and twisted, replicating themselves.
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