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I don't perform the stunt with the fox every day.

Only at festivals.

My father grows angry when I talk like that.

He says, "Sparta is the best country in the world.

It is a privilege to die for her."

My mother tells me to come back with my shield

or dead upon it.

My grandfather fought at Thermopylae.

I say don't expect a second Lycurgus.

The Persian Wars ended long ago.

I dislike sleeping on the cold ground.

I never take risks when we steal food.

(Better a companion than a club-wielding farmer.)

During the ritual beating, I fainted.


Ellie Biswell is a sophomore English Education major at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, MO. When not cramming for tests or writing papers, she enjoys reading, walking outdoors, and penning the occasional sonnet.



Ellie Biswell
Current Issue
16 Mar 2026

The garden is the resting place of your vulnerabilities; there’s a reason you’ve left them here instead of carrying them with you. Typically you enter hardened and hurried, beelining straight for the correct plot and quickly releasing whatever is clutched in your hand without a second thought—today, an attempted weaving of leather and lace, strength and suppleness that your body cannot figure out how to wear, nor your words to narrate.
If you say there are rats, I will believe you, though I don’t hear or see them.
A ruffling of branches as they resettle for the night. We dare not ask why they are here.
Spec Fic and the Politics of Identity 
As part of a collective of African writers who have created an Afrocentric Sauútiverse of five planets, two suns and a spirit moon, a world of science and fantasy, where there is no written language, we play with technology and sound magic to scrutinise the world as we know it, and use speculative fiction as a response to our world. 
Friday: When Among Crows and To Clutch a Razor by Veronica Roth 
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
Issue 23 Feb 2026
Issue 16 Feb 2026
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
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