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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
2 Mar 2026

Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Once I’ve finished writing, I will fold this letter up and tuck it into the Tristram you kindly loaned me (may it be our Galeotto … ). I’ll knock on your door, at which point I will most likely encounter a puzzled maidservant, who will ask who in the world I am, and I will explain that I am returning a book you were kind enough to bestow on me (generous creature that you are and clearly down-on-their-luck weatherworn would-be poet that I am).
the trees were softening, their bark for the hungry to scrape and scrape and spread it on whatever bread they could beg or bake
i must warn you before all else / before you poke and prod
Paul Kincaid and Dawn Macdonald join Dan Hartland to discuss style.
Strange Horizons
2 Mar 2026
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Issue 23 Feb 2026
Spec Fic and the Politics of Identity 
Issue 16 Feb 2026
Issue 9 Feb 2026
Issue 2 Feb 2026
By: Natasha King
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 26 Jan 2026
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Issue 5 Jan 2026
Strange Horizons
Issue 22 Dec 2025
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