HOLLY LYN WALRATH
  • Home
  • Publications
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Glimmerglass Girl
    • Numinose Lapidi
    • The Smallest of Bones
    • Il più piccolo fra le ossa
  • Editing
  • Write Weird
  • Blog
  • Contact
    • Press
    • Appearances

On the Loss of Cursive

1/15/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
When I was little, say four or five, I used to make my Mom write out things in cursive on little cards for me. I’d tell her what to write, then sit next to her at the coffee table in our den and watch her fingers and pen make the loops of cursive words, in neat lines with round letters. My mother has excellent penmanship. On the other hand, my father’s handwriting started out graceful and thin, but more spindly the older he got. Soon he switched to making block letters — in all caps. By the time the Parkinson’s had taken over, he was unable to write at all...

Read the full article at Coffeelicious . . . 

0 Comments

New Medium post: My NaNoWriMo was a Mess

12/18/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Do you ever think as humans we’re just afraid to get our hands dirty? That we’ve engineered our lives to be as perfect, pristine, and efficient as possible? And that maybe, if we aren’t perfect, then we’re failures?

I’m trying to abolish this idea from my creative life. The idea of perfection.

Read the full article here . . .
0 Comments

The End of the Year Sometimes Sucks for Creatives

11/28/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Around November, Writing Twitter starts talking about the end of the year. It’s NaNoWriMo, so people are often talking about writing anyway. But also, it’s the time of the year when, if you’re a writer in science fiction or fantasy, you should be posting your “What I Published This Year,” or “Awards Eligibility” post.

A lot of writers use this time to celebrate the works they’ve published over the year and encourage others to nominate them for best of lists and prize consideration, like the Pushcart Prize or Hugo Awards. Journal editors on the literary side announce their nominations for the Pushcart around this time. 2019 is also the end of a decade, so now people are also posting encouraging writers to share what they accomplished in the last decade. We’re sharing pics of ourselves in 2009 and 2019 to show the passage of time.

But I know that a lot of creatives struggle with all this.

Read the whole post here . . . 
0 Comments

Tricking Yourself into Writing

11/27/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I love the above image. It’s a photograph taken at Natural Bridge State Park, where someone has carved this quote from J.R.R. Tolkien into a walking path. J.R.R. Tolkien probably never imagined the life his work has taken on after his death — that someone would take the time to carve his words in a public space. In fact, I know he didn’t.

John Hendrix, an artist, recently posted a quote from Tolkien’s diary while he was writing Lord of the Rings. It reads:

Friday 14 April: ‘I managed to get an hour or two’s writing, and have brought Frodo nearly to the gates of Mordor. Afternoon lawn-mowing. Term begins next week, and proofs of Wales papers have come. Still I am going to continue “Ring” in every salvable moment.’

Read more here . . .
0 Comments

Reluctantly Writing About Death

11/26/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture


A year and a few months ago, my father died. Today, I signed a contract for a small poetry book on grief and dealing with my father’s death that is going to be translated into Italian and published in Italy. The world spins in weird ways, I guess.

Before my father died, I always looked on books about the death of a loved one in, I’ll admit, a pretty messed up and slightly dismissive way. I hated cancer memoirs, books that dived headfirst into the nitty-gritty details of death: bodies and hospitals and medicine and the grotesque humanity of grief. Also, there was a connotation with these books. When they were written by women about caring for loved ones, they often got lumped into women’s fiction, whereas a man writing about grief was somehow reinventing the wheel.

Read the full article on Medium . . . 
0 Comments

New Medium Article: NaNoWriMo Isn’t Just for Books

10/24/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), an online community and yearly event where writers make the goal of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. This year, I’m encouraging you to burn the frigging thing down.

Read how here . . . 
0 Comments

New Medium Article: Does Publishing Short Stories Matter?

10/15/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I have a new article up at Medium today on the economics of short fiction, how commercialism is changing what writers write, & a bit of advice from Shirley Jackson.

“The very nicest thing about being a writer is that you can afford to indulge yourself endlessly with oddness, and nobody can really do anything about it, as long as you keep writing and kind of using it up, as it were.” — Shirley Jackson (“Memory and Delusion,” Published in Let Me Tell You.)​

Read the entire article here . . . 

0 Comments

New Article at Medium: "Yesterday" As A Metaphor for the Creative Process

10/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
What if you woke up tomorrow knowing without a doubt you could write a bestseller? Paint a picture worth a million dollars? Release an album that was guaranteed to go to #1 on the charts?

What would you do?

This is the question behind Yesterday, a charming movie that pays homage to the works of The Beatles by erasing them from the world. Yesterday is a “what if” movie — What if The Beatles never existed? Himish Patel (best known for his work on the British soap Eastenders) plays down-on-his-luck musician Jack Malik, who wants someone to like his music other than his best friend Ellie (played by Lily James).
​
Read the entire article at Medium . . . 
0 Comments

The Stages of the Writing Life

9/4/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I'm teaching an online workshop with Gemini Ink in October on The Writing Life. Essentially, we'll cover the four major stages of taking a project from idea to publication. There's a whole lot to cover here, but if you're a newbie this is a great class for you. It also works nicely for those who are looking to reinvent their writing life and add more structure to the chaos.

Register for the class here . . . 

0 Comments

40 Writing Milestones to Celebrate

8/28/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
I have a new article up at Medium today! As a writer, it can be really hard to keep going. One way I keep myself motivated is by celebrating the small things. Sure, I was over the moon the first time I got a poetry acceptance. But I’ve learned that to keep going, you need to celebrate every little step. Every time I hit a new milestone, I try to appreciate that moment, because it validates all the hard work, long hours, and general malaise that being a writer sometimes entails. I love writing, but writing is hard.

Read the whole list here . . . 


0 Comments

Glimmerglass Girl is One Year Old

8/24/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Today is the one year book anniversary of Glimmerglass Girl, my first chapbook. This little book taught me a lot about being a writer & learning to love what you do. I learned that chapbooks are just as much work to promote as full length poetry books. I learned that getting a lot of interviews doesn't necessarily mean sales. But mostly, I learned that it's really scary to promote something personal, something you love, and that the writing community is one giant group of amazing, supportive people.

Won't you consider buying it? It would make my year to sell out the remaining copies. 

0 Comments

Guest Post: Horror Writers Association

7/2/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
This month I have a guest post up at the Horror Writer's Association on the theme of dark poetry called "Darkness and Light." if you're a HWA member, be sure to check it out! If you're not a member, you can read it on Curious Fictions for $1 or by subscribing to my feed.

1 Comment

Resistance through Erasure, Found Text, and Visual Poetry

6/3/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Niina Pollari's erasure of the N-400 citizenship form from Tyrant Press
Hybrid poetry forms can be a powerful form of resistance. From Jerrod Schwarz’s erasure of Trump’s inaugural speech to Niina Pollari’s black outs of the N-400 citizenship form, contemporary poets are engaging with the world through text, creating new and challenging works of art. Heralded by the rise of the “Instapoet,” visual works are a way to take poetry one step further by crafting new forms and structures that often transcend the page. 

In July, I'll be teaching a 4-week course online at the Poetry Barn on this very topic! We’ll study the forms of poetry that draw from outside sources and texts, learning how artists are reshaping the narrative of resistance and how to draw from news, media, canonical works, and other found texts to create our own work in conversation with the current world.

Click here to sign up for online workshop . . . 

0 Comments

Fighting Self-Rejection and Imposter Syndrome

5/16/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
The hardest part about submitting your writing is battling imposter syndrome and self-rejection. It doesn’t matter how you track your submissions or how many submissions you make in a year. Every writer has a different process that works for them. But it does matter if you never try — and these two things can make you freeze up when it comes time to hit send on a submission. That's why I posted a new article over at Medium today on this very topic. 

Read the whole post here . . .

0 Comments
Forward>>

    About the Author

    Holly Lyn Walrath is a freelance editor and author of poetry, flash fiction, and short fiction. Find her on Twitter @HollyLynWalrath

    ​Order my books:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    I run a monthly e-newsletter with writing prompts, editing tips, writing music, and more. Click below to sign up! 
    The Weird Circular

    Archives

    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015

    Categories

    All
    Amazon
    Armadillocon
    Art
    Awards
    Awards Eligibility
    Book Reviews
    Business
    Chapbook
    Collaborations
    Comicpalooza
    Craft
    Curious Fictions
    Editing
    Events
    Fiction
    Flash Fiction
    Giveaways
    Glimmerglass Girl
    Goodreads
    Houston Local
    Interstellar Flight Press
    Interviews
    Journaling
    Literary Journals
    Medium
    NaNoWriMo
    NaPoWriMo
    NetGalley
    Nonfiction Books
    Numinous Stones
    Offsite
    Poetry
    Publications
    Reading
    Reviews
    Short Stories
    Simply Silliness
    Submitting
    Subscribers
    Updates
    Workshops
    Writers Conferences
    Writing
    Writing Tips
    ZInefest

    RSS Feed

© COPYRIGHT 2022. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • Publications
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Glimmerglass Girl
    • Numinose Lapidi
    • The Smallest of Bones
    • Il più piccolo fra le ossa
  • Editing
  • Write Weird
  • Blog
  • Contact
    • Press
    • Appearances