Starting in May I’ll be doing a new poetry project on my Instagram.

#SerialKillerSummer is a series of erasure poems using found source text from famous murderers. I’ll be posting blackout poems (hopefully every day) that use the words of the creepiest, darkest, most rotten dirtbags and twist them. Erasure is the art of creating a poem from a found text by removing and cutting away words or blacking them out. What remains is an entirely new and original poem.

Why serial killers? Well, I’m a true crime junkie and I realized there are so many fascinating sources like interviews, court transcripts, manifestos, and other true crime found sources to work with. I got obsessed with how we can cut these killers down and get back at them for the lives they’ve taken. Manipulating their words is the best way I’ve found as an artist. My work is always interrogating the world we live in, shining a light in the darkest crevice.

Follow along on Instagram!

I have a new poem up today at Mithila Review! "We're Refugees Who Found Love Searching for Atlantis" is a pantoum poem that first appeared in Italian in my chapbook Numinose Lapidi from Kipple Press. I am very honored that Mithila Review agreed to publish the English and Italian version, translated by the late Marco Raimondo. 

Marco was an Italian translator of poetry who died due to complications surrounding his disability. Before he died, we discussed my sending out poems from the book so that they could be read together, and it was a dream of his to be published in magazines. I am honored to fulfill that dream today. 

Also, you can listen to me read the English version aloud in this publication :) 

Read it here . . . 

​Dates: March 1-28
Format: Group Workshop (more info)

From Plath to Sexton to Lorde to Walker, women are the backbone of experimental poetics. In this class, we’ll read the work of popular feminist poets and write our own poems inspired by their work. Audre Lorde said, “The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.” By celebrating the work of the women who came before us, this workshop will explore how to dismantle the patriarchal conventions of poetry by diving into the canon of women poets.

Register at the early-bird price of $275 (regular price: $295) before February 15.

 It's that time of the year again! I'm here to update you with all the things I published last year. It's been a fruitful year despite all the chaos, and I am supremely grateful as always for the editors who read and enjoy my work. Thank you to all the publications on this list! 

This year I have several Rhysling-eligible poems for SFPA members to consider for nomination. "Yes, Antimatter is Real" is eligible for the Dwarf Stars Award. My short story "The Red Shoes" in the Coppice and Brake Anthology from Crone Girls Press is eligible for the HWA Bram Stoker Awards in the anthology category. (If you'd like a copy of the anthology to review, send me an email at hlwalrath at gmail dot com.)

These days, it might seem superfluous to submit poetry to journals and magazines when you can make a living as an Instapoet instead. But in the world of poetry, having many publications under your belt can be a way to build towards publishing a chapbook or full-length book of poems.
What follows is a step-by-step guide for poets on submitting your work. This is part of a series of articles for new writers who’ve never sent their work out before. While everyone’s process is different, I hope these tips and tricks can be a starting point for you to figure out your submissions process and start getting your work into the world.

Read the full article here . . . 

I had a blast chatting with folks this year at the virtual World Fantasy Convention! It was such an honor to get to answer questions about indie publishing and author marketing, and to get to be on a panel with some of my favorite poets. Here are the recordings for your watching pleasure: 

If you’re a writer of short fiction or poetry, it can sometimes feel like you’re shouting into the void to get your work read. But as an editor, I am here to tell you: I am the void! I keep an ear to the ground for new writers to read and I can’t hear you if you’re not loud enough.

Read the full article on Medium . . .

​Poetry Barn Self-Paced Course: Writing Resistance Through Erasure, Found Text & Visual Poetry
DATE: Ongoing
TIME: Asynchronous, Self-paced
PRICE: $99
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 this four-module independent study workshop, you’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.

Shortly after you register, you’ll receive an email containing an invitation to create an account and begin learning. (Please note: This class does not include feedback or interaction with the instructor or other learners.)

Writespace: Poetry Critique (Synchronous  1-Day Workshop)
DATE: Saturday, October 10th 1-4pm CST
TIME: Online, Synchronous 
​In this workshop, we'll focus on four fundamentals that editors look for in poetry. It's one thing to write poems, it's another to start sending out your work to publishers. How do you know if the poem "works"? How can you revise a poem so it stands out in a slush pile? We'll focus on reading poetry like an editor, with an eye towards structure, word choice, content, and first and last lines. This is a critique workshop, so participants will be asked to submit up to two poems (max 4 pages) in advance. ​

I have a new poem up at Twisted Moon Mag, Issue 5: We Hold Up Eternity 

You make me into all of your favorite things. Wax-winged, you model my body to your likeness. Everything must be similar, the remains. You step upon my altar, run a finger along my lips, lick the dust from your skin. It tastes like skin cells and sweat and stardust...

Read the whole poem here . . . 

Hey y’all! I’m doing another Instagram poetry challenge this month. My goal is to write a queer poem a day in celebration of Pride Month. You can follow along on my Instagram account @Holly__Lyn. I started this for fun, as a way to process my feelings about Pride Month and what it means to me, so I hope you enjoy reading along.

Here's a link to the post with all the poems in one place. 

I have a new poem up today at Liminality: A Magazine of Speculative Poetry. This poem is called “Acacia,” and it’s named after a plant commonly used in rituals and spellcraft.

Use to anoint torches and consecrate hope chests. Endows protection as well as psychic and mystical powers. If planted inside a fairy ring, it will bring prosperity to the closest home. If burned, it creates a hypnotic state that is often perilous.
​
TW: This poem deals with illness and cancer.

Read the poem at Liminality

Agents and editors are looking for submissions that quickly set themselves apart. The stand-out submissions are fairly easy to locate. While all of slushing is somewhat subjective (as far as taste goes, we all have different loves and hates), I’ve noticed that there are a couple of things that are distinguishable between the stories I loved from a slush pile and the ones I passed over quickly.

Read the full article here . . .

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about contests and writing fees, in one handy article. Writing contests abound. There are 695 contests on Duotrope’s listing of prizes and contests for poetry alone. There are writing contests run by big magazines and writing contests by little academic journals. Some contests pay a great deal, upwards of thousands of dollars, while others may pay a smaller amount. Some contests come with publication, others are a cash payout only. In some ways, this pay-to-pay model mirrors the way artists submit their work, often asked to pay a fee to be a part of an exhibition or gallery.

Read the whole article here . . . 

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 . . .

Read the full story at Curious Fictions . . . 

I've read a lot of writing prompts in my time, and they all suck. Seriously. What is with this “Write a poem about a man who finds a dog on the side of the road and then he brings it home and then it eats his shoe . . .” prompt bull-honkey? (Okay, I made that prompt up, but that’s how most of them sound.)

Read the full article here . . . 

​
I have a new poem up at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association mag Eye to the Telescope. It’s called “Now the Patient Recounts the Houses in Her Mind.” This poem is inspired by the work of author Shirley Jackson. It’s a combination of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Read it here . . . 

We’re all being forced to slow down right now, and some of us are better at it than others. But I’ve noticed that writers, and creatives in general, are really, really bad at this.

Read the full post here . . . 

Thanks to J.A. Sullivan for reading the Coppice & Brake Anthology from Crone Girls Press, and this lovely review of my story "The Red Shoes."

One of the stories I enjoyed most, “The Red Shoes” by Holly Lyn Walrath, is a perfect example of unexpected twists. Walrath gives us a story of a lonely old witch in a deserted forest. You would expect that when the witch finds a lost girl (“A lovely redheaded thing curled in the litter of the forest floor like a fairy in bracken”), she would immediately make a meal of her, as the witch had done with so many other helpless children through the years. Yet she doesn’t. Obsessed with the past when trolls, werewolves, and other sorcerers called the woods home, the old woman casts a spell on a pair of red shoes for the girl. But magic rarely brings us the things we most desire, especially not without a hefty price. This was a beautifully written story with sharp images, and it reminded me of being a child, listening to Grimms’ Fairy Tales for the first time.

Read the full review here . . . 

So, I broke my knee in January. Which means that I have pretty much been inside for all of 2020. And you know what I’ve been doing? Catching up on trashy reality shows and finding comfort in soft things.

What I mean by that is media that doesn’t ask much of its viewers. Media that has all the feels, but none of the pain. That show that you go back to again and again, even if you feel like Netflix is judging you for watching it once more. We all have our favorite comfort movies and TV. I love edgy, dark, hard-edged things too. But we all need a little softness sometimes.

I know what you’re thinking. Wait a second, this is just a list of your favorite movies, isn’t it?

Why yes, yes it is.

Read the full article here . . . 

I have a new poem up at Liminality: A Magazine of Speculative Poetry. It's called "Daughters Saving Mothers" and it's a bit of an apocalypse poem. I hope you enjoy reading it. 

Read it here . . . 

Featuring My Retelling of the Hans Christian Anderson tale, The Red Shoes

By all rights she should have died years ago. A clever child should have come and burnt her up to a crisp, the right way to go, the decent way. But no such child ever came. Or at least if they did, it was her that did the burning. A woodsman should have done it — yes, with a big shining axe like thunder, snapping her neck. Or a knight on a horse as pale as moon rings, banishing her away to the farthest depths of the kingdom. Instead, the depths of the kingdom crept up on her in the night.
— The Red Shoes by Holly Lyn Walrath

I have a new short story forthcoming in the Coppice & Brake anthology from Crone Girls Press! This is one of the oldest stories in my bag, so I was really thrilled to see it accepted by this amazing small press.

This story looks at the classic Hans Christian Anderson fairytale “The Red Shoes” — except from the perspective of the crone. I was interested in looking at how the older women in fairytales are treated. It’s a dark, creepy, and strange story, so I hope you consider reading!

The stories in this anthology are the glimpses of the dark places between the forest and a dream. They are the shadows seeking the last notes of a dying violin. They invite the reader into a world where a condemned man faces his fate over and over and over again. Coppice & Brake is an anthology of dark fiction, featuring tales from the borderlands of horror, speculative fiction, and the nightmare fears that linger even after you turn on the lights.

Pre-order your copy today on Amazon!

About Crone Girls Press
Crone Girls Press originally began as a Facebook Group for fans of speculative fiction, hosted by speculative fiction author and writing coach Rachel A. Brune. As the idea took hold to publish an anthology of horror fiction in honor of her favorite fall holiday, Rachel began soliciting stories of dread, despair, and doom, all of which made for some uplifting reading. Upon receiving some truly terrifying–and excellent–material, she decided to go for broke and start working on an anthology series that would feature work by established and debut authors … from the darker side of speculative fiction. Follow us on Twitter, or visit on the web at https://www.cronegirlspress.com

Want a review copy? Leave me a note with your email and I’ll send you one.