Hollie Starling is a writer, folklorist and sporadic taxidermist from the north east of England. After a graduate degree in English Literature from the University of York she worked in a series of public museums. She runs the page Folk Horror Magpie on Twitter and Instagram which seeks to collect ‘the trinkets and curios of the folk horror tradition.’ She became interested in mourning rituals and folklore customs around death and grief after she lost her father to suicide in 2020. This developed into her debut book The Bleeding Tree, a memoir and exploration of world folklore published by Rider Books in 2023. Since 2013 Hollie has worked for the British Museum and currently acts as Assistant Librarian to the departments of Egypt & Sudan, Greece & Rome and the Middle East. She lives in London with her husband and their magpies.