Bethany Holmstrom is a writer and educator. Originally from rural Appalachia, she lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Her short fiction has appeared in Appalachian Review, The Forge Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from City College, CUNY, and a PhD in Theatre from CUNY Graduate Center. Her academic research touches upon US Civil War memories on the postbellum stage, and speculative fiction and media.
For many years she worked in the City University of New York system: most recently as an Associate Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, where she taught composition, liberal arts, literature, and creative writing courses. In Fall 2026, she will join the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Honors College.
Short fiction
“We’re Not Monsters” — The Forge Literary Magazine
“Dollywood”— Still: The Journal
“A Long Throw to Third” — Tiny Molecules
“Let Down Your Hair”— Rejection Letters
“Ink Drinker”— MoonPark Review [nominated for Best of the Net]
“That Time We Won the Samsara Sweepstakes”— The Molotov Cocktail
“Pile of Feathers” — Appalachian Review
Selected Pedagogy & Scholarly writing —
See CV for more
“Connecting through Writing: A Collaborative Writing Project Inspired by the National Day on Writing.” Co-author, National Council of Teachers of English, 2021.
“Teaching Black Mirror and Popular Culture.” Teaching note in Supernatural Studies 4, no. 2, 2018.
“Artificial Intelligence and Strange Strangers in Ustopia.” Essay in Future Humans in Fiction and Film. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018.
“‘You Women Folks Has No Business to Be Here Anyhow’: Romancing the War and Women in Civil War Memories on Stage.” Essay in Arts and Culture of the American Civil War. Routledge, 2017.
“Civil War Memories on the 19th Century Amateur Stage: Preserving the Union (and Its White Manly Parts).”Theatre History Studies 33, 2014.
“Integrating Broadway: Cultural Memory, Performance and History in The Southerners.” Journal of American Drama and Theatre 22, no. 2, Spring 2010.