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In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Anaea Lay presents S. R. Mandel's “Invisible and Dreadful.”



S.R. Mandel is from San Francisco, Boston, and Philadelphia, in that order. She is participating in the Odyssey writers’ workshop in 2019. She has lived in France, central Japan, and the Middle East, and her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Apex, Lackington’s, Galaxy’s Edge, and the Massachusetts Review, among others. She likes things that are several things at the same time. Find her @susannah_speaks or online at srmandel.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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