Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer

@kitwhitfield.bsky.social

3274 Followers 1393 Following

World Fantasy Award finalist. She. No AI In Brian Froud's Green Women: bit.ly/4cOoxUT The Gyrford series: tinyurl.com/nvvetupj Horror reviews: https://tinyurl.com/5cyf7x5v Patreon posts (free): https://www.patreon.com/cw/kitwhitfield Rep: Sophie Hicks

Paperback copy of John Wyndham’s “Thr Chrysalids.” A painting of a green, red-eyed alien, holding a spiked mace in it crustacean-like clause. It was black and yellow armour with fetching white fur trim at the neck and cuffs.
Illustration and shades of blue, black and white. A frog stands on the bank of a lake, muscular and upright like a naked man, playing upon a harp whose arch is made of vertebrae. Across the lake, the moon hangs in the sky, a beatifically calm feminine face.
Screen cap image from a trailer for some weird shit called ‘The Alpha’s Bride’. A girl in Ren-Faire-type clothes has just been pied in the face, and is trying to wipe filling out of her eyes. The caption reads, ‘had never bowed to beauty.’ He apparently never overcame a pie fetish, though.
Bellflower growing from an old wall of yellow London brick.
Print by Richard Shimell. Silhouette of an oak tree against a pale gold sunset.
Book cover with publication date 3rd June 2027. Book title: The Snakestone Girls by Kit Whitfield. Watercolour images of ammonite fossils and please source skeletons nestling amid kelp and henbane flowers. Quote on cover: ‘An absolute triumph’, AK Benedict.
Photo: trees with roots spreading in a pattern across the ground.
Fold-down wooden desk with a layer of dark-stained mdf on top. The computer rests on top of a wooden shelf with the keyboard tucked underneath. Mouse, water bottle, wooden mushroom-shaped lamp and a few crystals around as well.
Black and white wood cut: a tree curves around the left edge of the picture, a dandelion clock trailing its blossoms up the path of its trunk. Behind it, the moon rises in the sky shifting through various phases. A bird of prey flies into the circle of branches from the bottom left of the picture.
Cover: The Familiars by Stacey Halls. The silhouette of a woman stands amidst stylised ferns, enclosed by a hangman’s noose.
A fallow doe in a sunlit field walks away as if in dismissal.
Photo; blackberries ripening, lit amidst their spreading leaves by a sharp slice of sunlight.
Screencap of two posts. Lunchbox, @fishin4l0ve : i’ve talked about how Gothic horror is a fear of the remains of a now dead decadence at the past, I haunted castles or old haunted mansions. Our modern version of this is evidently empty shopping malls and animatronic pizzeria arcades. Cory Fitz, @cory_fitz, Jun 3: the key to understanding Backrooms is that members of Gen X were kids when shopping malls started dying
X thread. First comment by @PatsKam: I completely understand why Europeans say “football“ and not soccer, but you CANNOT convince me Celsius is better than Fahrenheit. Like 35 degrees just doesn’t represent how hot it truly is, but 95 degrees, now HOT. It makes more sense. Second comment by @ItsAndyRyan: If you’re arguing that “95 degrees sounds hotter than 35 degrees“ then you have to accept that zero degrees sounds colder than 32 degrees.” the (bad) argument swings both ways.
Take-away cup on a concrete bench in a sunny park garden. It’s actually a matcha latte with cherry syrup, but you can imagine the trickles are Hammer Horror blood trickles if your mind works that way.
‘Only on Audible’ cover image of The Memory Game by Nicci French. A gold pocket watch sits in a small pool of light, surrounded by shadows.
Book: Bone Magic, A Historical And Practical Guide To The Traditions Of The British Isles Regarding Bone Magic by Sophie Buchanan
Cleaner version of the previous photo.
Mural on the corner of a building on the street Eccleston Place in London. Black background with a blue greyhound looking back over its shoulder, surrounding by flowers. It had a stylised look reminiscent of medieval tapestries.
Photo of a bee against a leaf, with red arrows pointed to its leg joints labelled ‘Bee’s knees’.
Why, hadn’t they the lesson from God’s creatures the bears? When cubs were born, they were mere lumpen muddles; it was the mother’s tongue that licked them into shape. If a father bear had tried such a thing, he’d find himself raising formless abominations. Jedediah had managed not to hit the man of God, who had no children himself and hadn’t noticed how carefully Matthew remembered his manners that day. ‘Matthew’s nature is set,’ he’d said as quietly as he could. ‘He’s no infant and I’m no bear. He’ll shape himself within his home, and that’s here with me.’ It had been a long dispute, and he’d never really persuaded the visitor. It was just lucky that Mister Haye, the Gyrford parson of the time, was a man of mild and incurious temper when it came to doctrine and considerable interest in the workings of God as expressed in the birds and beasts of Creation. Mister Haye was swayed mostly by Jedediah’s undeniable contention that he was, indeed, not a bear.
‘Pleasant to me is the glittering of the sun upon these margins, because it flickers so.’ Marginal note by an Irish scribe in a ninth-century manuscript.
Painting, acrylic on panel; detailed, glossy and precise. A little sparrow perches amid stacks of blue-painted Japanese bowls.
As they concluded their talk, a striped brown cat came picking his delicate way amongst the cabbages like a monarch in an ornamental maze, and Bill took his thumb out of his mouth and called out, ‘Puss!’ Puss turned his head to examine the group and, seeing an offending mortal sitting in undeserved dignity between his favourite boys, gave a small spit of contempt and bounded away.
Photograph: a murmuration of birds taking flight. They look as if they're gathered like leaves around a tree trunk. Source: https://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/2024/02/06/local-man-wins-at-press-photographer-of-year-awards/
Sculpture against a black background: an orange snake whose tail gradually morphs into a trail of vines and flowers. Source: https://www.ellenjewettsculpture.com/portfolio-of-escape-and-near-misses-iii
Poster in bold prints of red and blue. A white rabbit with pink eyes sits in the centre, up on its back legs. The floor it stands on is a chessboard covered with playing cards, a mushroom, a bottle labelled 'Drink me' and a chess knight, as well as a smaller chess board. It leads in sharp perspective to a doorway in the background, from which radiate psychedelic Matisse-style squiggles of red and blue so vibrantly contrasting they're almost an optical illusion. There appear to be letters woven in and out of them, and they read 'Keep Your Head', but it's hard to make out what they say if you don't already know. Source: https://www.vam.ac.uk/shop/prints/white-rabbit-print-161853.html?srsltid=AfmBOoo-4bWELAJPXAWthVAoxytHmbEWuuUcL_sQAcCsJLXMPMY0WJwa
Pen drawing on lined paper. It’s technically a frog, but you might not know that if I didn’t tell you.
The wood rested there, clear and dark in the morning light, self-contained as an apple cupped in a palm. John wished, as he always did, that he could go and visit it. He couldn’t, though: he was firmly forbidden to enter. It was a great frustration to him; even on quieter days, there was a chill brilliance, a glassy heaviness of air between the trees, as if the whole place existed underwater, and he craved a walk there like an overheated man wanting to dive into a shimmering pool. But Aunt Pell would have known. Every single time he had tried to climb the fence, she had known; he could never get more than one leg up before he’d feel a firm set of fingers on his ear. It was infuriating, especially as Pell had no shadow of the unkenned upon her, nothing that should have let her see things others didn’t. She was as plain as earth, and glad to be so – and yet she always caught him. Knowing such things without a touch of feyness about her was cheating, somehow.
‘What is it, Johnny?’ Janet said. ‘I don’t know.’ For a moment, John looked – there wasn’t even a word for it. His starey look, the world around him closing out and his eyes focused on something that might not be there, something only he could see. ‘It just feels . . . look you, there’s a smudge on the corner here.’ He lifted it to his face. ‘It smells – does that smell of sap to you? Bramble sap?’ Janet sniffed the page, then shook her head, helpless. ‘I don’t know, Johnny,’ she said. ‘I don’t know any of what you’re thinking when you think like this.’ John raised his head, and there was a look of hurt in his eyes, of abashed loneliness, that she could hardly bear. ‘I don’t mean to be odd,’ he said. ‘I just—’ ‘Wait.’ It was the hoarse voice of Alice Brady that cut across them. ‘Let me see.’
Wrought iron gate with decorative circles between the bars. In the centre of this circle rather than life like and charming iron beetle.
Making Cocoa For Kingsley Amis It was a dream I had last week And some kind of record seemed vital. I knew it wouldn't be much of a poem But I love the title. Wendy Cope, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis
Poster from London’s Science Poems on the Underground series: Out There by James McKendrick (1955) If space begins at an indefinite zone where the chance of two gas molecules colliding is rarer than a green dog or a blue moon then that’s as near as we can get to nothing. Nostalgia for the earth and its atmosphere weakens the flesh and bones of cosmonauts. One woke to find his crewmate in a space suit and asked where he was going. For a walk. He had to sleep between him and the air-lock. Another heard a dog bark and a child cry halfway to the moon. What once had been where heaven was, is barren beyond imagining, and never so keenly as from out there can the lost feel earth’s the only paradise. Reprinted by permission of the author and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation from Dark Matter: poems of space (2008)
John turned his eyes to the chalk wolf opposite them. As he looked, he thought he felt something: a kind of cringe under his palm. The standing stone didn’t move; it was hard and rough as ever. There was just something in its rigidity like a locked muscle; the frozen stillness of a beaten hound. It wasn’t confusion. He was touching a stone full of fear. ‘It’s just a picture,’ he tried to whisper to it. Setting the stone wolves on the wander again was the kind of thing Grandpa would have very stern words about, but he wasn’t thinking about that. The crag of rock against his skin was like the bristle of terrified hackles.
Dim twilight in a city street, pylons stretching between buildings and a huge church rising in the background. In a pool of lamplight stands a wary, alert fox.
Movie poster. The title, Exam, is at the bottom in big red digital letters. The background is dark, showing a dark desk with a white piece of paper on it, a pen lying across. Behind sits a man in a suit and tie, we can only see his hands, which look like those of a white 30-something. The slogan reads: “80 minutes, 8 candidates, 1 answer. No question. “
Movie still with a shot of Michael Caine as Alfie holding co-star Jane Asher not-quite-affectionately by the neck. Overlaid text: Alfie (1965) Michael Caine sealed his screen stardom with this memorable portrayal of a cockney womaniser whose exploits seemingly typified the sexual freedoms of Swinging 60s London.
The top of one of the stems cartwheeled down off the bush in an explosion of thorns and outrage and made a dash towards the offending men. It might have gone ill with them if it wasn’t for the chain surrounding the bush, but as it was, the bundle of limbs stopped at the iron boundary and chattered in a series of vindictive clicks, each as dry as the snapping of a twig. Jedediah looked down at it with a cautious regard. It was a thin thing, really, armed and legged with more or less the right number of limbs, albeit with a profusion of thorns on them and more angular air than was proper. Perhaps for the purposes of conversation, it had taken to wearing a blackberry for its head, and the beaded surface was giving it trouble as to the number of eyeballs it should settle upon.
Paper sculpture: book pages shaped and painted into an adorable hedgehog.
Sliced pear on a plate. Cutting it in half went through the seeds, so they look like a pear of sad eyes.
Me and Professor Elemental in a blurry and unflattering but happy selfie.
Illustration. Deep night, a full moon hanging in the sky - or something like a moon, as it has jug handles and is only part-full of light. On the ground, a wealth of leaves with a tree-like growth springing up, something between an agave plant and an octopus. In the centre of this plant, light shines up like well-water; a stylised rabbit leans over collecting a cup of it. Off to the side amidst the leaves sits a jug also filled with light.
Across his arms there wound a twist of something, dark and feathered, but not really a bird. It was like wings half-formed, all wire-tight muscle and crushed dander, gripping the man’s flesh tight as talons.    Dig, my friend! it exclaimed. It wasn’t a man’s voice, nor quite a bird’s caw, but a voice without species; there was no mouth anywhere, just the words thrumming from its twining pinions like a chirp arising from the legs of a cricket. The man was stooped in exhaustion, but unable to free himself from the implacable helpfulness of the wings that grasped and wielded his bare arms.    Dig, my friend! The voice rang out, forcing the man’s hands into the soil again. They shall take us back – we will give them the crow-killer so they do not flee. Make them take us back. It was almost a wail, but still it wrangled the man’s bleeding hands into the soil like a mother shoving a child’s arm into a sleeve.
Oil painting: an evergreen forest seen from a low angle so only bare trunks show in the frame. Over a creek full of gold reflected sunset, a jagged fallen tree forms a bridge. Source: https://joymachine.art/products/low-creek
A ruled page full of my pig-awful handwriting.
Virgin/chad meme with the cartoons of a stooped 'virgin' and a ridiculously hyper-masculine 'chad.' These are labelled 'Virgin doublet-wearer', with an orange doublet added to the cartoon figure, and 'Chad, in the production of his own country', with the figure dressed in an eighteenth-century blue jacket, brown waistcoat and white stock. Captions added to the Virgin Doublet-Wearer: Denies his sex Brain as transparent as his clothes Slavishly deferential to other Nations A fantastick Appears like a Jack-Pudding Should make water sitting, and handle the distaffe, like a girl Probably French Wears his alamanack in his shoes Captions added to the Chad: Wears the Stately and Easy vest within doors Comely & Virile Preserves the lineaments of his body Chooses nothing Capricious or Singular Gives the Standard not only to his own Nation, but to all the World besides Known as a wise man by his gait
Then there were fey houseguests who would clean a kitchen, sweep a hearth, finish a day’s work, but they did not come by invitation: on the contrary, they came as they pleased, and they had their own ideas of housekeeping besides. (Most often, they’d tidy a dirty kitchen but smash up a neat one. Some folks believed they took offence at having their work done for them, but the Smiths tended to doubt any explanation so rational. Jedediah’s theory was that such People came with a plan to do housework, but that they regarded housework largely as a question of changing matters from one state to another, dirty or clean, stored or strewn, finished or unfinished, and were entirely agnostic as to which was better.) There were stories, too, about People who lived in this or that old tree and might answer questions with riddles, but those stories came from grandfathers with an unspecified number of ‘greats’ before them, and the current generations of Smiths regarded them as they did much-reworked metal: there might still be some ring in them somewhere, but you’d never find the original shape by looking. But rumours and whims aside, what Matthew and Jedediah had both known was cases where the People took a fancy to someone, and could be violent in defence of their friend. Their fancies were unswayed by whether their friend was a worthy soul – there had been that case over in Hawksdowne twenty years back, where the thing in the pond decided that the local thief was an excellent fellow because of his paddling skills, and matters had been two drownings along before the Smiths got called in. The People were also quite blithe about whether their friend wanted their championship; more than one customer in the Smiths’ history had come in pleading that he’d like the freedom to quarrel with his wife or haggle with his neighbours without finding them stuck full of thistles the minute he turned his back.
Screen cap: fantasy and sci-fi salon Facebook page. Group rules from the admin: 1. Be decent, damn it. 2. Don’t be all Internet-ish.
‘I thought of murder,’ Jedediah said. He spoke very plain and soft. ‘And you know it. And if I hadn’t the stomach for it, I’m not sorry. Makes me less like you. No, we’ve something else in mind for you, Father. Matthew hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I reckoned it would. He was always a better man than me and I was glad of that. But if you speak another ill word to my children, we’ll do it with the tongue cut from your mouth.’ Corbie started to say something, but Jedediah ploughed on. ‘They’re good men, Matthew and Franklin. They won’t like it, but they’ll help if I ask them. Folks liked you, Father, if they didn’t know you. But there’s no one’d fight for you. ‘And me, well, I have a family.’ He said this last almost gently, and it slipped into Corbie quiet as a blade through the ear.
Tropical fish swimming in tank. It has diagonal stripes, a yellow one over the head, a black one across the body, and then a white underbelly.
Stone carving on an old Victorian wall. A face, divided down the middle. on one half, a man’s face, hand pressed in contemplation to his cheek. On the other, a grilling skull, eyeball still in place and staring manically upwards.
Franklin knew the woods as he knew the way around his own house; it was a quick journey to find the bramble. It had nothing to say, unless a handful of saw-edged leaves flickering in the wind could be counted as a comment. ‘There you are,’ Franklin announced. ‘Quiet as you like.’ John didn’t have an iron ring like his father, so he removed one of his boots and, damp moss soaking a quiet chill into his sock, tapped one of the hobnails against a twig. The thing gave a little snarl, and John remembered something he should have thought of before: his grandfather had promised to leave it alone. ‘Good day, kind friend, by your earth my path did wend,’ he told it: some People found it easier to follow you when you spoke in rhyme, and any forge kept a few quatrains amongst its equipment. ‘Please forgive the iron knock, I meant you no insult or shock. I have one question, one alone: are you quite happy where you’re grown? Or is there more that we should do to bring a happy end to you?’ The bush didn’t bother to shape a full self; it just opened a slit on its branch and said, ‘Goway.’
Hero’s journey graphic. Stages: 1. Ordinary world. 2. Call to adventure. 3. Refusal of the call. 4. Meeting the mentor. 5. Crossing the threshold. 6. Tests, allies, and enemies. 7. Approach. 8. Ordeal, death and rebirth. 9. Reward, seizing the sword. 10. The road back. 11. Resurrection. 12. Return with elixir. Source: https://iulianionescu.com/wp-content/uploads/hero-s-journey-structurew.png
Wax sculpture: a pair of woman's hands in white, ending at the elbows. From wrist to elbow they are sleeved in pink, yellow and cream flowers. Source: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/03/the-delicate-floral-wax-sculptures-and-laser-cut-paintings-of-valerie-hammond/?fbclid=IwY2xjawQVO3RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeodLR1Lpl0ojpRTh_9Q7XFOwakkGax8Ip87y9G2vRQTjU58Z9My48DfY7rG8_aem_4YjCIwFLEXnhGSunFa2v9g
‘Don’t you Smiths know anything?’ Stan demanded, by now too exasperated with the boy’s ignorance to be suspicious of his motives. ‘This is how folks had it in my great-grandfather’s day, all right? No rhymes, no sound-echoing, it’s all in the beat. Open your ears; let’s see if you have any memory at all. And don’t go adding or changing words in your memory: you listen to what I say exact.’ Stan Mackem sat back to share an old clan memory-chant with a small and irritating Smith boy. Now Peter Alder was a learned man With too much in his head to do him good. By guile and boldness, stealth, and lack of ruth, He thought to steal a fairy from its court And make of it a servant and a carl To weave his nettle-flax to garb of silk.
Photograph: postbox topper. On a green fabric base sit a collection of knitted chicks, some of them poking out of eggshells, with a white knitted rabbit wearing a blue top hat.
Tan wall with fish raised in relief and an Arts-and-Crafts style edge of stylised seaweed at the bottom.
Cats as a class are given to smiling: it is in the cast of their faces, and they are not so pliable of feature as the folks who share their houses. Nevertheless, Puss managed to convey a very creditable sneer; possibly it was in the angle of his whiskers. ‘Tall folks may well be cowards,’ he remarked, ‘when they’re so slow of foot.’ ‘Ah, that’s the sad truth,’ John agreed. ‘Is that the reason for your courage, Puss, the speed of your feet? I suppose you could stay ahead of Black Hal if you so chose.’ ‘I,’ said Puss, ‘have no need. Let cowards tremble before him; the bold have other choices.’ ‘Oh, my,’ John exclaimed, feeling that some flattery might ease things along so he could ask Puss the question he really had in mind, ‘a tale of your courage, Puss!'