title: Cary Holladay
text: # Cary Holladay
  
  Cary Holladay is an American writer and professor, best known for her historical short fiction. In 1999, her story "Merry-Go-Sorry" about the West Memphis Three murder case was selected by Stephen King for an O. Henry Award.
  
  ## Biography
  
  Originally from Virginia, Holladay graduated from the College of William and Mary with a B.A. and then went on to earn an M.A. from Pennsylvania State University.
  
  She is the author of a novel, Mercury; a novella, A Fight in the Doctor's Office; and six collections of short fiction. She taught in the MFA program at the University of Memphis, with her husband, the poet John Bensko, and retired in 2020; her honors held there included a First Tennessee Professor Award.
  
  Her stories have appeared in over sixty literary journals and anthologies, including New Stories from the South and The Oxford American.
  
  ## Works
  
  * Brides in the Sky: Stories and a Novella, Swallow Press/Ohio UP, 2019
  * The Deer in the Mirror, Ohio State UP, 2013 (Winner of the 2012 Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction)
  * Horse People: Stories, Louisiana State UP, 2013
  * A Fight in the Doctor’s Office, Miami UP, 2008 (Winner of the 2007 Miami University Press Novella Contest)
  * The Quick-Change Artist: Stories, Swallow Press / Ohio UP, 2006
  * Mercury, a novel, Shaye Areheart Books / Random House, 2002
  * The Palace of Wasted Footsteps, U of Missouri Press, 1998
  * The People Down South, U of Illinois Press, 1989
  