Size / / /

three things she sought

in the forest's frozen jaws

icebird's sharp feather

firebird's charred talon

nightbird's dark egg

three times she leaned

over her reflection in the ice

but one feather will not free her

to soar toward the sun

one talon will not arm her

against wolf and bear

one egg will not hatch her

into a kinder pyre




Yoon Ha Lee's debut, Ninefox Gambit, won the Locus Award for best first novel and was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke awards. He lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat, and has not yet been eaten by gators. Find him on the web at yoonhalee.com or contact him via email.
Current Issue
16 Feb 2026

Water is life here, and it's evident in that if you stray too far off the beaten path and away from water, you will get lost and you’ll be lucky if anyone sees you again before sundown. My village is settled neatly between two gentle rolling mesas and along a thin river in a sparsely populated community lovingly called ‘the valley’.
In the beginning, the ocean was lonely / and so she created a fifteen-year-old girl / (or was it the other way around?)
It’s me not you, and the / Hole in the sky still weeps sticky tears.
Friday: Slow Gods by Claire North 
Issue 9 Feb 2026
Issue 2 Feb 2026
By: Natasha King
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 26 Jan 2026
Issue 19 Jan 2026
Issue 12 Jan 2026
Issue 5 Jan 2026
Strange Horizons
Issue 22 Dec 2025
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Strange Horizons
Issue 8 Dec 2025
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