Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
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kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
@kitwhitfield.bsky.social
3.2K followers 1.4K following 3.9K posts
Novelist ‘as tart, dark and juicy as a summer pudding’. World Fantasy Award finalist. She/her.

Timeline cleanse queen.

The Gyrford series: tinyurl.com/nvvetupj

Horror reviews: https://tinyurl.com/5cyf7x5v

Agent: Sophie Hicks.
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kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer @kitwhitfield.bsky.social · Nov 22
Art by my husband illustrating one of the creatures of my IN THE HEART OF HIDDEN THINGS. (tinyurl.com/nvvetupj)

The brambles had been talking to themselves for a while, but it’s only when someone uprooted one that they started to get really stroppy…
Pen sketch. Spindly bundle of spikes with a blackberry for a head rears up like a mantis. Text caption: ‘Scratchity GOWAY!’ Pen sketch. Skeletal bramble bushes all over spikes hunch like spiders.
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Look what just arrived! Book by Drs Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman with an intro by @terriwindling.bsky.social Windling and illustrations by Annie Stegg and I am SO EXCITED!

Anyone into fey folklore, you gotta check this out.
My beady little eyes peeping excitedly over the top of the hardcover copy of this book, title FAIRYLORE, with a gorgeous fairy wom watercolour illustration on the cover.
February 18, 2026 at 1:36 PM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Now that's a proper topper all right.

Shared by El Syd in www.facebook.com/groups/87692....
Red post box at the corner of a village somewhere in Britain. Red crossed strings hold it in place. The flat surface is crocheted white with purple crochet 'crocuses' poking up as if growing through snow. At the centre of it rests a curled-up sleeping crochet fox. It's very cute.
February 18, 2026 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
davidmbarnett.bsky.social
I know SCRATCH MOSS isn’t out yet but our folk horror friends at @waterstones.bsky.social are looking even further ahead to TWISTED PIKE. Get 25% off by using code FEB26 if you book before the clock chimes midnight on February 20th!

www.waterstones.com/campaign/feb...
Promo campaign for TWISTED PIKE from Waterstones
February 18, 2026 at 11:13 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
My favourite primary teacher told the story of spotting a tiny face up the sleeve of a visiting Russian grande dame. No one believed her…

Years later she learned it was a pet chihuahua. But I’d like to believe in these creatures too.
curiousordinary.bsky.social curious ordinary @curiousordinary.bsky.social · Sep 1
In #JapaneseFolklore, kudagitsune are magical spirit fox familiars, tiny enough to hide in sleeves or bamboo pipes. They have the power to possess and control humans, and can also serve as magical familiars for sorcerers to assist with divination, prophecies and casting curses.
#FolkloreSunday
1/2
Illustration depicting a magical white fox.
February 18, 2026 at 11:23 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
#booksky #bookqw word: PAIN

Fairy-smith Matthew is trying to deal with a fey-courting murderer in his holding. His arms are injured, which makes it more difficult, so his old auntie has taught him how to negotiate with crows.

Buy here: tinyurl.com/nvvetupj
He let his arms drop and they hung loose by his sides, tired under their own weight. With real meaning, he looked up at the crows. This was a difficult whistle, but Mabbie had taken pains with him. He looked at one of his arms, then the other, tautened his mouth, put what he could of his voice behind it and sent out the call: Someone hurt me. Danger to us. Someone hurt me. A crow rattled down from the branches, tipped its head to attend. Then another. Then another. The notions of justice, for men, are difficult and painful. But within the bounds of their understanding – their towering, wind-tipped, starve-edged bounds – there is justice in the crows of the air.
February 18, 2026 at 9:59 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Pancakes are as close as English cooking textures get to mochi.
February 17, 2026 at 8:38 PM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Came on this in researching next book.

Theory: people who assume parents used to love their kids less ‘because they might die’ have had easy lives.

Never assume something can’t be true just because it would be unbearable. ‘Bearable’ and ‘possible’ have no relationship.

youtu.be/I13SqLXssFU?...
Did They Love Their Children? The History of Grief
YouTube video by Living History by Dr Julia Martins
youtu.be
February 17, 2026 at 6:36 PM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
“A shrill, merciless screech, hoarse as a goblin, sharp as a hinge. It was
already flying away, but the gleam of wings, whiter than white,
was beautiful beyond anything John could imagine.”

Book: tinyurl.com/nvvetupj

Artist: John Cannell
Line drawing; a barn owl stoops into an undergrowth of cow parsley, their lines sloping as if dizzied by its speed.
February 17, 2026 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
themerl.bsky.social
We're also marking the launch of Radical Rural, a gallery trail championing many more voices who champion and care for rural England today. From summoning the folk spirits of England's woods and tors, to meticulously mapping the data of who really owns England.

merl.reading.ac.uk/whats-on/rad...
Radical Rural gallery trail
Discover the artists, activists and movements championing rural England's people and places today.
merl.reading.ac.uk
February 13, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
alchemicalrat.bsky.social
Finished, and first coat of varnish on. Provisionally titled “Monolith”, acrylic, 25x30 cm.
Landscape painting of a forest with an enigmatic large stone cube next to a curving path. A single raven is circling over the cube.
February 12, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
julietemckenna.bsky.social
ICYMI
wtpress.bsky.social Wizard's Tower Press @wtpress.bsky.social · 10d
The ebook of The Green Man's Holiday is on sale in February. In the UK check out our bookstore, Amazon UK or Kobo. The Kobo sale should also work elsewhere in the world. See our website for links to stores.
wizardstowerpress.co...
Cover of The Green Man’s Holiday by Juliet E McKenna. Art by Ben Baldwin. Image is of an animal-like face with many sharp teeth peering out from a pile of gray rocks. Foliage and white flowers cover the rocks.
February 16, 2026 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
rainewilson.bsky.social
I am ABSOLUTELY reading this as HARD PROOF that Romans farmed ichthyosaurs.

It is fact now. Sorry.
February 15, 2026 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
emilydamstra.com
This #paleoart shows 3 views of the Devonian brachiopod fossil Paraspirifer bownockeri; one is reconstructed w/ some epifauna and boreholes. These are fun to find; they're an impressive size (for brachiopods). I had an excellent specimen to use as a reference for this painting.
#FossilFriday #sciart
Detailed color illustration showing 3 different views of the same specimen. Two at the bottom are the unreconstructed fossil from different angles. The reconstruction at the top shows the brachiopod in life position, with 9 visible boreholes and the common epibionts Cornulites and a bryozoan. The shell has pinkish and whitish horizontal stripes and the valves are slightly agape, with cirri lining the opening.
February 21, 2025 at 7:01 PM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
And to add to the Blyton point below - Blyton was clear ‘tomboy’ George wasn’t just ‘boys have more fun.’ There’s another book where a girl called Roberta is hiding from kidnappers with them and it’s decided they’ll cut her hair and pretend she’s a boy.

Roberta FREAKS OUT. 1/4
February 14, 2026 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
danwhitehead.net
To give you an idea of how deranged the UK has become about gender stuff, here's Enid Blyton - the absolute avatar of classic English conservatism and a huge fan of racist "gollywogs" - casually describing a gender non-conforming kid in the 1940s and having their friends be totally cool with it.
"I say! Are you Georgina?" The child in the opposite bed sat up and looked across at Anne. She had very short curly hair, almost as short as a boy's. Her face was burnt a dark-brown with the sun, and “Famous Five 01 - Five On A Treasure Island” By Enid Blyton 7 her very blue eyes looked as bright as forget-me-nots in her face. But her mouth was rather sulky, and she had a frown like her father's. "No," she said. "I'm not Georgina." "Oh!" said Anne, in surprise. "Then who are you?" "I'm George," said the girl. "I shall only answer if you call me George. I hate being a girl. I won't be. I don't like doing the things that girls do. I like doing the things that boys do. I can climb better than any boy, and swim faster too. I can sail a boat as well as any fisher-boy on this coast. You're to call me George. Then I'll speak to you. But I shan't if you don't." "Oh!" said Anne, thinking that her new cousin was most extraordinary. "All right! I don't care what I call you. George is a nice name, I think. I don't much like Georgina. Anyway, you look like a boy."
February 14, 2026 at 11:33 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Reply:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I hate one of us now
But I’m not quite sure who.
Post by PEN, Professional Editors Network, @MplsPEN, Feb 14 2022 Roses are red And John’s eyes are blue But you said they were hazel Back on page 52 #CopyeditorValentines
February 14, 2026 at 12:35 PM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
What’s your favourite love poem this Valentine’s Day?
Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX) Edna St Vincent Millay 1892-1950 Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution’s power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would. Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Love is Not All" (Sonnet XXX), from Collected Poems. Copyright 1931, 1934, 1939, © 1958 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Holly Peppe, Literary Executor, The Millay Society. www.millay.org.
February 14, 2026 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
richardmortimer.bsky.social
#BlueSkyArtShow #Wood
February 14, 2026 at 9:10 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Aye, there's a woman sits by the lake on Valentine's Day you can ask about love if you like. She'll mostly tell you how she loves the world rather than who you'll marry, but it's good advice nonetheless.

#AskAFairySmith

tinyurl.com/nvvetupj

Artist: Chie Yoshii
Painting. A pale-skinned woman with dark brown hair heaped in a neo-Classical-looking ornate style, decorated with bejewelled butterflies and natural-shaped gold. She sits against a dark background, butterflies fluttering around her; her dress is Virgin-Mary blue but slipping off her shoulders. From behind her peeps a glowing heron. Two fox cups sit on her lap, one dozing and the other putting up a trusting paw to her chest. She also holds a bitten pomegranate in a hand decked with a heavy emerald ring. Watermark: copyright 2022 Chie Yoshii.
February 14, 2026 at 9:06 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Let's play a game: if you were picking the perfect Wuthering Heights director, who would it be?

I'll start: Stanley Kubrick.

I'm serious. That book is the Full Metal Jacket of its day. A gaze into a culture dominated by violent people so culturally segregated their rule goes unquestioned...

1/9
February 13, 2026 at 9:56 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
I like to feel that if it came to a knockdown drag-out style-off between me and my notebook, I’d stand at least some chance of winning.
Photo; two notebooks on a wooden table. The higher, labelled ‘The notebooks people give me’ in ‘Elegant’ font, is a V and A notebook with a beautiful Japanese print in midnight blue and shining gold. The lower, labelled ‘The notebooks I use’ in ‘Typewriter’ font, is a plain navy A4, cheap and basic as possible.
February 13, 2026 at 8:51 AM
Reposted by Kit Whitfield - fantasy writer
robheighton.bsky.social
A warning to always keep me well away from the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket, because it just looks too delectable and I can't be held responsible for what happens next
One face of the Franks Casket, showing an intricate whale's bone carving Speculoos biscuits, whose moulded decoration looks vaguely similar to the carvings of the Franks Casket More of the biscuits More of the casket
February 12, 2026 at 11:20 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
I didn’t watch the war between the People of Thompson’s field and Gillam’s ditch, but looking at how crestfallen the fairy-mounts are looking in Thompson’s field I’d say the ditch has it.

#AskAFairySmith

Books here: tinyurl.com/nvvetupj
bealeiderman.bsky.social Bea Leiderman @bealeiderman.bsky.social · 6d
How about a rare Colombian moth photographer? 😏

Genus Symphlebia, not very rare but look at that punim!
A moth on a twig, facing the camera. The moth has dark gray eyes and is very furry. The fur is mostly orange around the eyes and fades to yellow. The legs are also orange and yellow. The antennae are mostly hidden, also dark gray
February 12, 2026 at 1:08 PM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Middle-aged feminism is when you don't correct doctors who mistake your baby for a girl because they'll be gentler with him, and don't correct officials who write to you as 'Mr' because they'll listen to you more carefully.
February 12, 2026 at 11:45 AM
kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Morning all.

Artist: Yu Chengyou
Print: two graceful little brown pheasants picking berries off the white snowy ground. Above them, the ground becomes so thick with black berry-stalks and tiny red berries the image has a Jackson Pollock look.
February 12, 2026 at 7:48 AM