Katharine Whitfield writes under the pseudonym “Kit
Whitfield”. She studied English at Cambridge University in the 90s, and later
attended the famous UEA creative writing MA, where she was taught by the Poet
Laureate Andrew Motion and W. G. Sebald. I first discovered her work in the
same anthology that published Zadie Smith’s first stories. She later contacted
me to find out if Authortrek could help publicising Readfirst.com, for which
she worked as managing editor. Unfortunately, there was little that I could do
to assist at the time, and I doubt that anything could have saved
Readfirst.com.
Katharine spent several years working on her novel
featuring werewolves, “Unreturning Track”, which has now been published as “Bareback”.
However, as the blogger GalleyCat has pointed out, since “bareback” is a term
more commonly associated with gay porn, they might want to change the title
back. Then again, given that the term “bareback” in the novel refers to the 2%
of the population who are not werewolves, this analogy may be intentional. This
is more US slang, and it led to the title of the novel being changed to “Benighted”
in the US. The barebacks are given the role of policing the city during full
moon nights, to stop their wolfish fellows from going too wild. The main
character is a bareback called Lola Galley, who, as part of the minority, faces
a daily battle against discrimination. Del Rey have also bought a second, and
as yet, untitled novel from Kit Whitfield.
Kit Whitfield has written a couple of non-fiction titles
– “Little
Angels”, “Girlfriends”,
“Where
Dogs Dream”, “Great
Quips from Great Brits”, and “Smooches”.
“The
Little Finger of the Left Hand” - this short story was published in the
same May Anthology that featured Zadie Smith. It is also one of the
most extraordinary and vivid stories that I have ever read.
Kit
Whitfield – visit her homepage, or read her
blog
Plain
Useless – another brilliant story from Kit Whitfield
A
Discussion with Kit Whitfield – from her webpage
Kit
Whitfield: Genre-defyers: Top 10s – a list that Kit Whitfield compiled for
“The Guardian”
Interview
with Kit Whitfield – from SFFworld.com
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