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     for Silvia Gasparini

You teach me patience, send jars of sunlight
that require careful straining. Your children

spin gold from acacia and rose, turn blood shades
into caring sweetness. You did not know me

from either inhabitant of Eden, but still you threw
wide your garden gates and said: Come, taste.

Whence I've come in such condition—my wings
in shreds, hum broken—you took the time to ask.

Now, I take my tea with a fine skim of wax.




AJ's first full-length poetry collection, The Sting of It, was published by Tolsun Books in 2019 and won Best LGBT Book in the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards. Their first novel, The Pursued and the Pursuing, was published by DartFrog Blue in 2021 and won 2nd place in the Adult Historical Fiction category of the Reads Rainbow Awards. AJ holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University and is a full-time English Faculty member at San Juan College. AJ has been on staff at Strange Horizons since 2012. You can visit their website.
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11 May 2026

If only Serthe'P had been able to fit in, maybe she could have protected —. No. This thought was dangerous. Mnth’R had helped her understand that their isolation had more to do with the Raja’s exploitation of their cast’s fears than any shortcomings of theirs, his Manifest Sight propaganda curdling climate anxieties into prejudice against community members. Serthe’P needed to remember that their lives mattered too much to be reduced by a tyrant’s ideology. Separated from the cast, they were still finding ways to take care of each other.
Siberia our first home / wild and remote–safe / but Alexei wanted more / theatre–dances–rich men
Change requires examination of the initial errors
Issue 4 May 2026
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By: Athar Fikry
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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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
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