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Crone Girls Press: Coppice & Brake Anthology (March, 2019) - The Red Shoes
The old woman heard crying in the forest. Weeping as faint as the sigh of falling sand in the witch’s hourglass. She’d given up the art of witchcraft long ago. Curses and promises and gingerbread houses. If other sorceresses still lived, she might have asked them if they grew tired of the taste of small children or the squeezed look on their faces before they went. She cringed to think how a part of her now wanted to hold them, to pull them up into her old arms and cuddle their soft cheeks to her own. But no children walked her woods these days. The children learned long ago to stay away. And no other crones to consult either, only her, alone in the rickety house by the creek in the gloomy woods. The cat died long ago, too. Or slithered off to become a part of the night... Reviewed at Kendall Reviews |
Flame Tree Fiction newsletter (November, 2018) - This Isn't a Home, It's a Wilderness
The Beryls watched us from their dwellings on the opposite end of the vast plain. They lived in the shadow of the blue pyramids, which rose on the horizon like mountains. Their dwellings made of white bones wrapped in scaly hides. We saw them stalking back and forth between the forest and the plain. They did not walk like us. They did not know our language. But they had given us land and let us come to their planet.
The Beryls watched us from their dwellings on the opposite end of the vast plain. They lived in the shadow of the blue pyramids, which rose on the horizon like mountains. Their dwellings made of white bones wrapped in scaly hides. We saw them stalking back and forth between the forest and the plain. They did not walk like us. They did not know our language. But they had given us land and let us come to their planet.
Daily Science Fiction (August 13, 2018) - After the First Comes the Last
Read my blog post about this story
When Aria cast the first spell, it was like filling a quarry in her belly she never knew existed. Saying the words and knowing they would work filled her with a sensation of wholeness, with the utter totality of truth. And hot on the heels of this came the rush of excitement, the startled joy of discovery, the blush of success. Sure, she was only trying to lift the stain from the carpet so her mother wouldn't find out about her clumsy attempt at smoking, but it was something, right? Later, at breakfast, she absentmindedly cursed and levitated the milk...
Read my blog post about this story
When Aria cast the first spell, it was like filling a quarry in her belly she never knew existed. Saying the words and knowing they would work filled her with a sensation of wholeness, with the utter totality of truth. And hot on the heels of this came the rush of excitement, the startled joy of discovery, the blush of success. Sure, she was only trying to lift the stain from the carpet so her mother wouldn't find out about her clumsy attempt at smoking, but it was something, right? Later, at breakfast, she absentmindedly cursed and levitated the milk...
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Shards: A Noblebright Fantasy Anthology (Spring Song Press, 2018) - Tarot of the Animal Lords
There are many ways to play this game. In the forest of secrets, the past is always the first card drawn. To interpret the cards, one must keep in mind the divinatory and symbolic meaning of every single card. This works best in partners—an oracle and a querient. If a card appears upside down, its meaning changes, suggesting the opposite. These other meanings may be seen as yin and yang, black and white, dark and light, but the best oracles learn how to read between the lines... Now available for purchase at Amazon and other retailers. 
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Now available for pre-order on Amazon
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Robots & Artificial Intelligence Short Stories (Flame Tree Publishing, September 2018) - Stardust
This is an old-fashioned kind of place in the heart of a new-fangled kind of city. I always pick the place for us to meet. Ducking through the door, I push aside the black velvet curtain meant to keep out the cold and I shake my head as the host tries to take my coat. For a moment, I smile grimly. I don’t get cold . . . Now Available on Amazon Reprinted at Curious Fictions 
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Fireside Magazine (February 2018) - knick knack, knick knack
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When you were a child, white skulls used to follow you through the woods. You tried to catch a glimpse of them, but when you turned your head their skeleton bodies would disappear, fading into the canopy. Only their bone-voices remained, clacking through the trees, knick knack, knick knack . . .
Reviewed by Quick Sip Reviews Reprinted in Flash Fiction Online (March 2019) Reprinted at Curious Fictions |
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Luna Station Quarterly (Issue 030, July 2017) - The Joy of Baking
It’s amazing how much easier it is to bake a cake when you’ve got an eternity to get it right. The secret to effective baking is patience, followed by the ability to fold the batter with a metal spoon instead of rushing in with a wooden spoon like a hammer. The folding in must be gentle so as not to break the hard-earned bubbles of air. Lastly, a baker must have the willingness to guard the oven, your feet cold on the tile, letting the warm scents of butter and vanilla envelop you and seep into the whole house, holding your breath while the batter rises, goldens, and browns slightly at the edges.
Timing is everything . . . |
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Remixt Magazine (July 8, 2017) - Restoration and Angel
On the day the saints remove their habits—shedding black veils, letting their long locks free in sheets of amber cotton or untamed tangles of black, twisting around heads like halos—on that day, the flower man comes. Reprinted in the Flash Fiction Podcast, click below to listen! Reprinted at Curious Fictions |
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Litro Magazine (April 21st, 2017, Flash Friday) - We Are Not the Young
Two women sit cross-legged on the floor, in a 70s style living room. The older pulls scrapbook after scrapbook off the wall, trying to find a name the younger recognizes. |
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Spider Road Press (Approaching Footsteps, 2016) - When I Wore Pink Boots
Available for purchase at: Spider Road Press Amazon Book People, River Oaks Books, & local Houston bookstores |
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Freeze Frame Fiction (Q9/10 2016) - We Never Are What We Intend
"We all have a little darkness inside. Except mine is real. I see it when I look in the mirror. I turn my head to reach for a towel after showering; the mirror is white with fog and from the corner of my eye my shadow moves—like it’s got a mind of its own. Like it’s waving hello." Reprinted at Curious Fictions |
Artwork by Luke Spooner
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Vine Leaves Literary Journal (Issue #17 2016) - The Thirteenth Ride
"By the thirteenth time you ride it, the rollercoaster has no name." |
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Urban Fantasist / Grievous Angels (March 15, 2016) - The Last Man on Earth
"This is me – as I stand on the last bridge, watching the Earth burn. The tides overtake, crumbling cliff and mountain into the Atlantic." |
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Literary Orphans #23: Grace (February 2016) - "In the Dark World"
"We are séance-ing. We are channeling. We are Ouija-ing. We draw circles in red chalk in the driveway and in the morning your parents will wash them away with the hose." |
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Condensed to Flash: World Classics (2015) "A Day Without Mirrors" (The Picture of Dorian Gray).
"She remembers the day it was painted. She had slept until noon in the white-downed bed of the artist, and they had sipped pink champagne out of crystal and nibbled ripe strawberries. In that moment, the painter and her muse were one. Without thinking, the words had tumbled out of the girl’s strawberry-red mouth, 'I wish I could stay in this moment forever.'" Reprinted at Curious Fictions |
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365 Tomorrows (June 2015) "Confessions of a Tree Nymph."
"When you cut down a tree, you are merely shutting a door forever. Despite the loss of comradery, trees are okay with this. They don’t want you in their world. They don’t like you. They don’t mind another shut door." Reprinted at Curious Fictions |
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Pulp Literature (Summer 2015) "Mermaid Hunt."
"Each day Marda gets closer. The sub circles coral reefs off the coasts, where mermaids are said to like the colors of the schools of fishes, and train them to swim around their necks like jewelry or live behind their ears, beneath their long hair. Sometimes mermaids like shallow places, but mostly they like the dark and the beautiful, uncharted, abandoned, soulless parts of the undiscovered world." Reprinted at Curious Fictions |
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forthcoming
About the Author
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Holly Lyn Walrath’s poetry and short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Luna Station Quarterly, Liminality, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbooks Glimmerglass Girl (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Numinose Lapidi (in Italian, Kipple Press, 2020). She holds a B.A. in English from The University of Texas and a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. She is a freelance editor and host of The Weird Circular, an e-newsletter for writers containing submission calls and writing prompts.
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