Rick Hollon

@mimulus.bsky.social

2407 Followers 987 Following

Genderqueer SFF writer & poet. They/them. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Rhysling & Elgin nom’d author of TIME TRAVEL IS EASY (2025). Words in F&SF, Strange Horizons, Analog, OTHERSIDE, Kaleidotrope, ALOCASIA. Loves dinosaurs, wildflowers, human rights. ACAB. mimulus.weebly.com

Photograph of an orange jewelweed flower, a bright orange flower shaped something like a cone.
Mountainous landscape looking down from high up a slope. A forested mountainside broken up by rocky patches slopes down to a U-shaped lake.
Landscape photograph of green fields in a valley under a ridge of hills and overcast sky.
Photograph of several yellow flowers with five petals and extravagant stamens, overlooking a rocky river out of focus in the background.
Screenshot from a document that reads: Samuel sighed, and collapsed onto the couch next to Marc. For once, Marc seemed too glum to make a crack at him. Ada pulled the printouts from her backpack, but as he always did, Justin jumped in to take the floor before anyone else could. “There’s been another dinosaur sighting,” he announced. He stood in the center of the room, looking from one to the other of them, but the mood was all wrong, and no one reacted the way he wanted. “It was even in the newspaper. Here. Look.” He pulled a Castleton Telegraph from under the Parcheesi board as if it were a magic trick. He waited for a reaction, got none, then handed the folded paper to Samuel. “‘Giant Boar Shot Near Bellevue,’” he read, then squinted more closely at the grainy photograph. His lips moved as he skimmed through the article. He sat up straighter, excitement (or possibly concern) building. “It’s not a boar.” There was pride in Justin’s voice, as if he’d shot the creature personally. “It’s twice as big as that man.” “It’s no dinosaur, either,” Samuel said.
Photograph of a pond seen through forest. An inlet of the pond forms the foreground, reflecting blue sky and summer clouds. The far shore of the pond is a green line of forest.
Photograph of an orange newt, the eft (juvenile) stage of the eastern red newt.
Animated gif from Futurama. Amy and Fry sit in a car. Text shows Amy’s dialogue: “If you were, they’d be all, ‘straighten your pope hat…’”
Photograph looking across a wooded valley at a forested slope beneath a rocky escarpment under cloud-dotted blue sky.
Photograph of a tuxedo cat enjoying the smells and sounds from an open window, his shoulder propped against the sill.
Screenshot of a document that reads: The night rose to fill the silence. Rain drummed on the leaves, soaking through to patter across the platform. Samuel lifted the sleeping bag over the two of them, settling shoulder to shoulder in the close warm space beneath it. Russ’s breath was hot against his neck. “My dad,” Samuel began, “he left us a little while ago. Me and my mom had to move to a trailer because he’s fighting her about child support. He says she took me from him, even though he was the one who left.” Dads are assholes, he wanted to say, but maybe that would be presumptuous of him. (He barely knew the boy.) “You live with your mom?” Russ’s voice held a hint of wonderment, as if he hadn’t considered such a thing could be possible.
Photograph of a marshy pond under blue sky. Light clouds are reflected in the pond, which is packed with floating water plants.
Photograph of a pond under rolling green hills and blue sky. A beaver lodge, a mound of sticks and earth, sits against the bank in the foreground.
Photograph looking down a metal fire tower staircase at my partner R poised on the landing where the stairs switch back.
Photograph of an old Schilling “Baseball Game” pinball toy, a plastic handheld toy with a tiny silver ball and spring shooter that cheaply imitates a pinball experience for us 1980s poor kids.
Screenshot from Jurassic Park. Evil entrepreneur John Hammond looks contemplatively at the head of his cane, which is a bulb of amber enclosing a mosquito.
Selfie of a white nonbinary individual with long brown hair, resting their head on a sleepy tuxedo cat on the arm of a green couch.
Photograph of three pink lady-slipper flowers growing together on the forest floor. The pink, sack-shaped orchids grow on skinny stalks rising from broad leaves.
Photograph of the view from the top of the Helderberg Escarpment in John Boyd Thacher State Park, New York. Bright green forest falls away on steep slopes down to the Mohawk Valley.
Photograph of a rocky coast, looking toward the Portland Head lighthouse perched on a headland.
Photograph of a stand of sundial lupines in flower. White and bluish flowers grow up a central stalk from radiating leaves.
Photograph of a forested landscape falling away from cliffs. In the foreground, a trickling creek disappears off the lip of a waterfall down the cliff.
Photograph of two flowering bodies of jack-in-the-pulpit, striped cases enveloping a thin flowering stalk.
Photograph of a large white trillium flower growing from mossy tree roots in a forest.
Photograph of the flower of large white trillium. Three big white petals surround yellow stamens.
Photograph of a red columbine plant growing from a crack in mossy limestone. The red flowers hang like tiny ornate chandeliers from slender stalks.
Photograph of a clump of bright yellow flowers of marsh marigold.
Photograph of a cluster of white flowers growing on an understory tree in the forest.
Screenshot of Bluesky team member Sky’s profile, showing how my account is blocked.
Up-close photograph of a red trillium flower. Three crimson petals and three paler green sepals surround prominent central stamens and anthers. The large leaf-like bracts surround the flower.
Photograph of a mausoleum of creamy stone slowly being reclaimed by forest in a hilly cemetery. The first brush of green brightens the trees.
Photograph of a cluster of yellow trout-lily flowers on the forest floor.
Photograph looking down at a bloodroot flower growing on the forest floor. Eight white petals surround yellow stamens.
Screenshot from my novel in progress, which reads: His head was overwhelmed with living sound. A wall of humid heat. A thousand new fragrances. Even the light was different, filtered through the high canopy of the redwoods. A cloud of pink and gold butterflies erupted from flower-heavy laurels, swirling over him, tickling his arms, flittering around his ears, alighting on his blue ballcap. He walked forward a little more. The government researchers had worn a path through the ferns. It followed the wall of a ravine, marked with subtle hatchet marks on the dogwoods and artocarps. The passage of boots had stripped moss from roots, crushed the weedy goosefoots, trampled the cinnamon ferns. He heard strange calls, hoots and honks and grumbles, echoing through the forest. Much bigger than any bird.
Photograph of two people walking along a footpath through hemlock forest.
Photograph of the book Boy, with Accidental Dinosaur by Ian McDonald. The cover depicts a Carnotaurus in riding harness nuzzling the hand of a black-clad cowboy in a dusty Western landscape.
Photograph looking up a hemlock tree trunk at the forest canopy under blue sky.
Photograph looking down from the Helderberg Escarpment in Upstate New York. A forested hollow slopes down from the upper cliffs to the farms of the valley below.
Screenshot from my manuscript that reads: A whole nation of men just like Russell’s father. A theocracy of abusive dads. He felt it in his chest, the pressure of memories, the backhand impacts, the belittlement, the blue-black Smith & Wesson left on the table to dare him to prove his manhood. All the countless little head-games of dominance a malignant narcissist inflicts on his teenage son. His body remembered. His muscles tensed with the same fight or flight desperation that had first pushed Russell into the Cretaceous. He held himself rigid, fighting the surge of panic. He knew he wouldn’t make it past the sentries. He focused on the susurrus of wind, the oncoming storm. Maybe that could be an opportunity, he told himself.
Photograph taken low to the forest floor. Flower stalks of round-lobed hepatica rise to closed flowers above fallen oak leaves.
Cover art by Helen Whistberry for my book Time Travel Is Easy. An Archaeopteryx skeleton dances in a rain of feathers in front of black tree trunks and a blue background.
Photograph of hemlock trees leaning over a stream in a wooded ravine. Sunlight filters through the grove and plays across the water.
Photograph of a broad waterfall rushing down stair-step cliffs under blue sky.
Photograph of two cats looking intently out a window in identical poses.
Photograph of a painted trillium flower growing on a sunny forest floor. The three petals are white with a burst of magenta toward the center.
Photograph of the top of a waterfall plunging off a line of limestone cliffs into a woody slope. The line of cliffs continues into the distance under blue sky.
Screenshot of a poem titled “Permian Pastorale.” The text reads: Goddess, flood my wounds in golden hour Tongue-fern tremble in Gondwanan wind Lay me here to collect sweet yellow leaves And approaching rumors of polar night Those long Gondwanan afternoons Dimetrodon measures her elegant lyre And plays our endless sunset rounds Gorgon eases my limbs to sleep in stone Dragonfly spins a hurricane, a simoom: A wingspan stretched around the globe Goddess, stitch your nest within me My milk-heavy ribs vault your burro
Photograph of a wooden box with abstract tree shapes painted on its side. The trees look evolutionarily ancient, their forms simple.
Photograph of a frozen lake under overcast skies. The opposite shore is a line of forest broken by occasional houses.
Photograph of a tuxedo cat loafing on top of a cat tree.
Photograph of a moss-covered limestone outcrop in the forest. A split in the rock forms a mouth-like shape, with icicles forming scattered teeth.
Photograph of a leafless tree silhouetted against overcast sky.
Photograph of two cats perched on a windowsill. Sunlight hits a wooden fence beyond the open window.
Cover of my poetry collection Time Travel Is Easy. Cover art by Helen Whistberry. The cover depicts the skeleton of an Archaeopteryx against a background of stylized black trees.
Photograph of paper-like leaves lingering from last season on a beech tree.
Screenshot from Futurama. A TV shows an ad for Bachelor Chow, served in a bowl like cartoon dog food. The tagline reads “Now with FLAVOR!”
Photograph of a museum exhibit featuring a fossil of Prototaxites, with a mural above it showing its strange tall growths over the Devonian landscape.
Screenshot of the opening paragraphs of an old fantasy novelette. It reads: Electricity raced through Janzi’s breath, hissing in from the darkening storm and infiltrating his skin, burrowing through his nerves like sparks poured from a forge. The wind picked up with the approaching night, bellying the ship’s sails. Janzi gripped the railing and winced as the ship swayed up a lifting wave, and tried to will away the Power creeping into him, if only to have one last respite. Yemaya save me from that curse. Beyond the fringes of the storm, a sliver of western sky was still scattered with tiny suns glowing like clouds of fireflies above a pond.
Cover art for my book Time Travel Is Easy. It depicts the skeleton of an Archaeopteryx against a stylized tree trunk. Art by Helen Whistberry.
Photograph of two cats crammed into tight quarters together inside a soft cat house.