Clara H. Holmes

Born in Ohio in 1838 and later based in Colorado, Clara H. Holmes was an American writer whose stories and poems appeared across magazines and newspapers over many years. Her work ran in publications including Midland Monthly, Overland Monthly, and Travel, and she was also active outside writing, running a florist business in Cripple Creek.

Holmes is especially remembered for Floating Fancies Among the Weird and Occult (1898), a collection of science fiction and horror stories noted as an early example of this kind of book by an American woman. She also published Scattered Autumn Leaves in 1926, showing the range of her writing from unsettling fiction to poetry.

She died on July 14, 1927, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Today, her reputation rests on the way she brought together late nineteenth-century magazine storytelling, regional life, and a quietly adventurous interest in the weird and unusual.