Size / / /

after Mother

died her red

dress continued

baking pies

scrubbing the toilet

beating out the rugs

"I don't even miss her"

Frank said at

the dinner plate

meat caught in

his smile

they found

him in the

smokehouse

canned with

the beans

packed neatly

in the freezer

her red dress

snapping on

a flagpole

with no

wind




C. A. Conrad's childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He escaped to Philadelphia the first chance he got, where he lives and writes today with the PhillySound poets. He coedits FREQUENCY Audio Journal with Magdalena Zurawski, and edits the 9for9 project. Soft Skull Press is publishing his first book of poems, titled Deviant Propulsion, available Fall 2005. He has two other forthcoming books, The Frank Poems (Jargon Society) and advancedELVIScourse (Buck Downs Books). He is the author of several chapbooks, including (end-begin w/ chants), a collaboration with Frank Sherlock. You can see more of his work in our archives and at his website: CAConrad.blogspot.com, or contact him by email at: CAConrad13@AOL.com.
Current Issue
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
Friday: Zoi by Jane Mondrup 
Issue 4 May 2026
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By: Athar Fikry
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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Issue 9 Mar 2026
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
Strange Horizons
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