Sundial Magazine for Historical Fiction
@sundialmagazine.bsky.social
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📥 86
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Your home for short histfic on the web. Subs are open. Please see our Call for Submissions.
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Call for Submissions Sundial Magazine invites submissions for flash, poetry, and short stories (up to 9,000 words) for inclusion in an upcoming anthology and publication on our website. We are seeking works set in or before 1936 that explore the social and political tensions leading up to WW2.
12 days ago
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"What the Raccoon-Eyed People needed were horses, but the Spanish never traded horses. Would these French trade horses? And what was in that long wooden box?" Read "The Raccoon-Eyed People", a new
#histfic
#shortstory
about the
#wichita
people by Robert Temple
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
1 day ago
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"The careful watch for broken weft— the fault betrays a wand’ring mind. The windows frame a cagedness out of which the thought may fly—" Read "Offering to the Textile Mill Girls of Lowell,
#Massachusetts
, 1840", a new
#histfic
#poem
by Kataryna Zharkovna
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Offering to the Textile Mill Girls of Lowell, Massachusetts, 1840
The careful watch for broken weft— the fault betrays a wand’ring mind. The windows frame a cagedness out of which the thought may fly— oh, narrowed girlhood! To tame the wooden beast must I! and rue...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/offering-to-the-textile-mill-girls-of-lowell-massachusetts-1840
6 days ago
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4
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Call for Submissions Sundial Magazine invites submissions for flash, poetry, and short stories (up to 9,000 words) for inclusion in an upcoming anthology and publication on our website. We are seeking works set in or before 1936 that explore the social and political tensions leading up to WW2.
12 days ago
0
4
1
“'Bless me Father, for I have sinned.' Highly unoriginal, & redeemed thru his baptism, tho given his stench I wondered if any part of him had ever been in contact w/water." Read "Saints Preserve Us and We Them" by Amy Bitterman w/art by
@seanbwparker5000.bsky.social
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
about 1 month ago
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1
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"Lulled calm by the cool of the moon dust settles into the cracks of your walls cakes thick the corners of your eyes while you sleep, sifts keen into the hollows of your lungs." Read "Plow and Prairie Dust", a new
#poem
about Dust Bowls by
@mynachang.bsky.social
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Plow and Prairie Dust
April 1935, Boise City, Oklahoma, after the Black Sunday dust storm. Lulled calm by the cool of the moon dust settles into the cracks of your walls cakes thick the corners of your eyes while you sle...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/plow-and-prairie-dust
about 2 months ago
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"... a beautiful 4-legged creature whose powerful haunches & long tapering legs were formed for speed. Larger than an elk, it pawed the ground with hooves like and yet not like a deer’s." Read "The God Dog", a new
#histfic
#shortstory
by Robert Temple.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
2 months ago
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"He slips his hand around my waist and pulls me close. 'I learned a lot over there.' His voice is a warm caress on my ear. 'How life’s awful short.'" Read "Life's Awful Short", a new
#flash
by
@chrisdotydunn.com
with original art by
@seanbwparker5000.bsky.social
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
3 months ago
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2
2
"I hadn’t heard from the Boers in a while, but the Lords at the Kimberley Club weren’t worried. They said Kimberley was surrounded." Read "Burning Crowns", a new
#shortstory
set in
#southafrica
by
@mlstrijdom.bsky.social
. With original
#art
by Scott Tierney.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
3 months ago
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We are open for
#submissions
! Please read our Submissions Guidelines, then send us your best
#histfic
!
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Submissions
Call for Fiction and Poetry Submissions is Open Call for Visual Art is Open
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/submissions
3 months ago
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This Christmas, read "The Visit", a short story by Alexandra Magearu set in Romania, 1989. "Visitors need to be welcomed respectfully to alleviate the heaviness of winter, the soul-crushing cold, & the prospect of a holiday stripped of the most basic delights."
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
3 months ago
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Sundial has great things in the works! We have several new illustrators hard at work illustrating wonderful new
#histfic
stories. These stories and original illustrations will be posted in early 2026. We also plan to open for
#submissions
soon. Stay tuned!
4 months ago
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Our 6th and final nominee is the
#poem
"Andrew Goldsworthy's Touching North, 1989" by Merridawn Duckler Please read and if you enjoy these stories and poems, share with others who might also enjoy.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
5 months ago
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Our 5th nominee is the
#poem
"Escape, Frederick!" by David Salner, which retells one story from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Escape, Frederick!
Appeal by already free coworker from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass I knew your Master Auld. He was my boss on many jobs. I let him talk, and always he’d convince himself he was the k...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/escape-frederick
5 months ago
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Our 4th nominee is "The Emperor's Cloak" by Jo-Anne Rosen (first published in The Copperfield Review), which recounts the legend that Napoleon visited a Polish rabbi-seer to ask him what could be divined about his invasion of Russia.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
5 months ago
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Our 3rd nominee is "The Making of a Gimp'd Gut Minikin" by B.B. Schaikes, the story of a young Venetian musician who finds himself suddenly motherless in a London besieged by bubonic plague.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
5 months ago
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Our 2nd nominees is "The Book of Hours" by Brooke Bianchi-Pennington, which tells the story of a talented monk who has just learned that there is now a printing press in his own town.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
5 months ago
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1
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Our 1st nominee is "The Gods Decide" by Joyce Bingham, with original art by Kaci Ellison. Set in the
#RomanEmpire
, this is the story of a fresco painter having a very bad day.
#history
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
5 months ago
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Sundial Magazine is proud to announce our 6 nominees for the
@pushcartprize.bsky.social
. All of the following stories and
#poems
were published in Sundial in 2025. This year it was exceptionally difficult to choose only 6 to nominate from the many excellent submissions we received.
5 months ago
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We published so many incredible stories and poems this year that I am having a very hard time picking only 6 to nominate for the Pushcart Prize. There is no doubt that more than 6 deserve to be nominated.
5 months ago
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"'A printed book! I didn’t know we had a press here in Florence!' 'It’s new. They can print almost 15 books a day!' De’Rossi scoffed. 15 books a day was ludicrous. Where was the art? The craft?" Read "The Book of Hours", a new
#story
by Brooke Bianchi-Pennington
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
5 months ago
0
3
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"I do not know how I have become bewitched but it probably happened because I was not pious enough." For Halloween, read "The Putnams of Salem", and original
#histfic
#shortstory
by Greg Houle, with original art by Sandra Eckert
#witchy
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
5 months ago
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1
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Happy birthday Sundial! On this day in 2020 we launched. In the past 5 years we've published 101 original short stories, 30 original poems, 6 novelettes, 1 play, 2 novel excerpts, 43 flash stories, 2 curios, and 1 short story reprint. Here's one of my fav. stories:
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Historia Calamitatum Mearum
Historia Calamitatum Mearum The Story of Héloïse and Abelard Nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Donna Glee Williams
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/short-stories/historia-calamitatum-mearum
6 months ago
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"I was 1 of 6 to be nubbed off at the Tyburn Tree. After our bodies fall, we belong to the Hangman. He sells our clothing to the poor. Our bodies he’ll fence to the surgeons to be anatomized." Read "The Resurrection Men: 1722", a new
#shortstory
by James Vescovi
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
6 months ago
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"The gentleman handed her a gorgeous chitarrone, comically large in her small arms. Mother tuned, then skillfully plucked it. The English tittered at the scandalous display." Read "The Making of a Gimp'd Gut Minikin", a new
#histfic
#shortstory
by B. B. Schaikes.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
6 months ago
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"No Moses ever knew the swamps so well. She read the tide like scripture, moved with care, A conjure-woman swaggering out of hell, Dragging God’s wrathful mandate through the air." Read "Combahee Hymn", a new
#poem
by A. Z. Foreman about Harriet Tubman
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Combahee Hymn
June 2, 1863 We poled through silt and dusk, the water’s hush As tight as prayer between the cypress knees. Each reed, each frog-slick log, each sudden thrush Seemed privy to the gush of destinies. T...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/combahee-hymn
6 months ago
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“In Jamaica, they hung immediately. Except the two women who ‘pled the belly’. Their reprieves were temporary, until the births. Formidable Mary.” For Talk Like a Pirate Day, read "The Secret Life of Annie B." by Teresa Tennyson, an original
#histfic
#flash
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
7 months ago
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"Before dawn, the famous composer leaves Venice. The gondola brushes the orphanage of Ospedale della Pietà. There, the composer looks away, his jaw tense." Read "Four Seasons in Mantua, 1720 Circa", a new
#flash
#histfic
by
@sgscarso.bsky.social
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
7 months ago
0
0
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"You ask for a divorce as if you were asking me to pass you the salt. I reply: no, thank you.". Read "A Conversation Over Breakfast", a new
#histfic
#shortstory
set in East
#Germany
by
@emmamvenables.bsky.social
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
7 months ago
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Call for submissions! Please read our guidelines, and then send us your best
#histfic
!
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Submissions
Call for Fiction and Poetry Submissions is Open Call for Visual Art is Open
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/submissions
7 months ago
0
2
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"I wasn’t given a name at first— only a number. And even that, they forgot to write down. ... They told us we were lucky— a roof, a uniform, silence." Read "Jelena's Book", a new
#poem
that takes place in the Jasenovac Concentration Camp. By Milanka Sulejic.
#ww2
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Jelena's Book
Jasenovac Concentration Camp, early 1940s I. The Girl Who Was Never Counted I wasn’t given a name at first— only a number. And even that, they forgot to write down. I remember the scent of boiled ...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/jelenas-book
7 months ago
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1
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"Our labour lines the merchant’s purse, ... our wool sacks are his plunder and his riches." A precursor to the Labor Movement arose among textile workers in 18th century England. This Labor Day read "The Sergemaker's Rebellion, Tiverton" by Emma Phillips.
#laborday
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - The Sergemaker's Rebellion, Tiverton
It’s not the gold of the sun, the emerald grass, nor russet hues of Devon earth you seek, but serge. Our labour lines the merchant’s purse, the finery of France upon his back our wool sacks are his p...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/the-sergemakers-rebellion-tiverton
7 months ago
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2
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“Comrade Rotaru, your son is an enemy of the state. And you will help me bring him back." Read "The Visit", a new
#histfic
#shortstory
by Alexandra Magearu that takes place during Ceaușescu's totalitarian regime in Romania.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
8 months ago
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"He will tell his wife that he doesn’t dream about it anymore. It won’t be true. But it will be what she needs to hear." Read "There Will Still Be Minnesota: A Tale of Convoy PQ-17" by Larissa Sprecher
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
8 months ago
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This post is to inform you of a scam targeting writers. Pay-to-publish (in which writers pay for editing services) can be a legitimate service, but now scammers are posing as editors/publishers and using "pig butchering" methods. Please read this, authors, and beware.
archive.md/WaHIp
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https://archive.md/WaHIp
9 months ago
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2
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"For a while, Jacques and the other priests weren’t troubled by the Revolution." In honor of
#bastilleday
, read "Not Being Equal" by Mary Byrne, an original
#histfic
#shortstory
published by Sundial Magazine for Historical Fiction.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
9 months ago
0
1
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Subs are open! Send us your best
#histfic
. Please read our submission guidelines.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
9 months ago
0
2
1
"The first woman who tried to become my Mama had warm eyes and smelled like cinnamon. But when she asked my name, I burped in her face." Read "A Child of Prestige", a new
#histfic
#shortstory
by Shanteé Felix. Original art by Sandra Eckert.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
9 months ago
0
1
1
On Independence Day, enjoy the first short story Sundial ever published: "The Islet" by R. Louis Scott, with original art by Yaleeza Patchett. It includes a cameo by my favorite traitor with a breakfast named after him.
#histfic
#shortstory
#revolutionarywar
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
9 months ago
0
1
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"Arrive anywhere from Norway or take an icebreaker. Or fly. Look for a circle that has no entry or exit, and lives inside and outside." Read "Andrew Goldsworthy's Touching North, 1989" by Merridawn Duckler, a new
#histfic
#poem
about massive art at the North Pole.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
9 months ago
0
2
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Read "Autocrat at the Lunch Table", a new
#histfic
#poem
by Gerard Sarnat based on his encounters with Linus Pauling.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Autocrat at the Lunch Table
Stanford Med during a twelve-week winter infectious disease rotation, it just happened that every Sunday I had lunch in the clinic’s empty waiting room with one noble man who many years before was h...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/autocrat-at-the-lunch-table
9 months ago
0
1
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Have you ever looked through our collections? I've gathered stories with similar themes (Maternity, LGBTQ, Visual Arts), locales (the U.K., the Far East, Latin America), or time periods (the Renaissance, WW2) into collections. Browse and enjoy!
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Collections
Gathered here are collections of stories and poems sharing a common setting, time period, theme, or identity.
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/collections
10 months ago
0
2
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"Sometimes I think I am already in the ground. I truly have nowhere to turn. The only thing to do is record this so when I am dead perhaps someone will pity me." Read "The Lady", a new
#histfic
#shortstory
by Susan Moisan, with original
#art
by Yaleeza Patchett.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
10 months ago
0
3
0
"Our labour lines the merchant’s purse, the finery of France upon his back our wool sacks are his plunder and his riches." Read "The Sergemaker's Rebellion, Tiverton", a new
#histfic
#poem
by Emma Phillips
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - The Sergemaker's Rebellion, Tiverton
It’s not the gold of the sun, the emerald grass, nor russet hues of Devon earth you seek, but serge. Our labour lines the merchant’s purse, the finery of France upon his back our wool sacks are his p...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/the-sergemakers-rebellion-tiverton
10 months ago
0
0
1
"I knew your Master Auld. He was my boss on many jobs. I let him talk, and always he’d convince himself he was the kindest master ever." Read "Escape, Frederick!", a new
#histfic
#poem
by David Salner, from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Escape, Frederick!
I knew your Master Auld. He was my boss on many jobs. I let him talk, and always he’d convince himself he was the kindest master ever. One day, as he ran the winch and I was in the hold, the cable...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/escape-frederick
10 months ago
0
1
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Submissions are open! Send us your best historical fiction.
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Submissions
Call for Fiction and Poetry Submissions is Open Call for Visual Art is Open
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/submissions
11 months ago
1
3
0
“'It wasn’t until police saw the pictures that they realized who they’d been up against: Bonnie & Clyde.' 'She can’t be older than you are. 2 policemen dead; she’s bound to come to a bad end.'” Read "Skyline Drive", a new
#histfic
#novelette
by Rita Welty Bourke
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
11 months ago
0
1
1
“Edna, I’ve got a surprise for you,” he announced as he walked through the door. “What’s that, Paul?” “A new washing machine. A Bendix Dialamatic.” “You’re joking. We can’t afford that.” Read "Blue Stars", a new
#histfic
#novelette
by Jennifer Porter
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
12 months ago
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“The ashtray was beautifully colored with a scene of the Schönbrunn Palace in turquoise and pink. What he would want with this beautiful thing on his last night on earth was another matter." Read "The Ashtray", a new
#histfic
#shortstory
by Richard Lawrence Bennett
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
12 months ago
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"This token, round like a mouth or a baby’s suckle is mine to exchange for ale." Read "Trade Token, Red Lion, Tiverton, 1657", a new
#histfic
#poem
by Emma Phillips, writer-in-residence at Tiverton Museum
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
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Sundial Magazine - Trade Token, Red Lion, Tiverton, 1657
This token, round like a mouth or a baby’s suckle is mine to exchange for ale. My wife bids I bring it home, make columns of such height the inn may offer food in place of hops. I say a man may make...
https://sites.google.com/view/sundial-magazine/poems/trade-token-red-lion-tiverton-1657
about 1 year ago
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"The ground rises to meet me like my mother’s hand when vexed. I bite my lip with the force. I stand up. My pulse thumps in my ears." Read "Woman in a Field, Somewhere in France, 1942" by
@emmamvenables.bsky.social
sites.google.com/view/sundial...
about 1 year ago
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2
1
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