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S. Pitt
ALLi Author Member
Location: United Kingdom (the)
Genres: Fantasy/SciFi/Speculative, Historical Fiction
Skills: Press/Media Interview, Reading/Literary Event, Self-publishing Workshop/Training, Speaking Engagement/Lecture, Writing Workshop
Like many children of the Sixties, S. Pitt wanted to be an astronaut or time-traveller. When these proved impracticable she became an author instead. Having chosen Historical Fiction as her main genre, she is thus able to live vicariously in Anglo-Saxon, Dark Age, 17th Century Britain and 19th Century Tasmania without personal risk to life and limb (though this doesn't mean her characters escape so lightly).
A love of horses, geology and history led S. Pitt on various paths: she has worked as a groom; researched sea-level changes on the north-east coast of England; discovered a mysterious 14/15th Century cremation site in Northern Ireland and lived for a year in a campervan in Tasmania. She is now a full-time author.
A recurrent theme in S. Pitt's writing is the interplay of historical events, landscape and mythology. Researching her work has led her to the far north and west of Scotland; the Fens of East Anglia and the South West Wilderness in Tasmania. She has also followed the Viking sea-road to the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland, (though in considerably more comfort than Erik the Red and Leif Eriksson!). One day she hopes to follow Leif to Vinland.
Some of S. Pitt's titles are available as e-books on Kobo and Amazon Kindle and print editions of 'Fen-wolf', 'Trouwerner', 'Korunah's Gift' and 'The Boy who found Salt' are now on sale globally through Amazon and other online bookshops.
Her short story 'Ice Bear' was shortlisted for the HNS 2016 Short Story Award and included in the anthology 'Distant Echoes' and 'Dinosaur' was recently (October 2023), shortlisted for the Creative Writing Ink 2023 Short Story Prize.
S. Pitt's books
Fen-wolf
England,1066. Edward the Confessor is dead and Hereward, estranged son of Eorl Leofric of Mercia, returns from exile. But his lands have been ceded to his nephew, Morcar; peace is short-lived, and when Norman invaders murder his foster-brother, Hereward turns from thegn to outlaw and rebel leader. As the Normans tighten their grip and uprisings fail, men flock to join his band, the Fen-wolves, at Ely, the Isle of Refuge. Soon the whole Norman army is on its way, resolved to destroy Hereward and, with him, the last centre of English resistance. But even when the Isle falls by treachery, the fight continues . . .
Narrated as if by Hereward himself, Fen-wolf is an intimate portrait of this most enigmatic and uncompromising of heroes, a man prepared to lose everything rather than submit to tyranny.
The paperback edition (illustrated) is now on sale; the digital editions are available through KDP and Kobo.
Trouwerner
To its indigenous people, Trouwerner (Tasmania), was the world. They lived there according to the seasons and ancient traditions, as their ancestors had done for countless generations. Then the island was discovered by Europeans. It became 'Van Diemen's Land', and everything changed. Through the life of one man and his kin, this series of 16 short stories explores the impact of invasion on the aboriginal Tasmanians from the first sighting of a sail in 1792 to their internment on Flinder's Island in 1835. E-book, paperback and hardback editions on sale now.
Hardback: ISBN 978-0-9932398-8-5
Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9932398-5-4
e-book: ISBN 978-0-9928095-2-2; ASIN B07JC8HJ38
Four Wonders
Set in the Fens during the Civil War of the 1640's, this novella is both a horror story and an exploration of magic. When the narrator's abusive father sells her to a stranger, a new exciting world opens to her. For her master is Reynauld Sely: alchemist, historian, possessor of arcane knowledge and member of a Guild whose quest is the pursuit of Truth. Yet while he is willing to share his knowledge, he has a secret and dangerous purpose. And this is a time when the boundaries between science and magic are poorly defined, and both may be interpreted as witchcraft.
The Boy Who Found Salt
When Tark, discovers salt beside the lake that is his home, it presages disaster for him and all his people. Forced to flee alone across the desert, he comes to a hidden green Valley whose people are fiercely protective of their world. They accept him into their lives but when the survivors of his own clan arrive, he is forced to choose sides, with devastating consequences. Shortlisted for the 2020 London Book Fair's writing competition, 'The Write Stuff', 'The Boy Who Found Salt' is a timeless exploration of humankind's ability to survive environmental disaster.
The paperback edition is now available, ISBN 978-1-73979510-8.
Cromwell's Promise
When he returns home after fighting in the English Civil War, Tom Swainson is full of hope for a New Age of equality. Yet he finds his wife with child by his friend, Matthew Hobday, and his livelihood threatened by 'Venturers', who wish to enclose and drain the Fens. Swainson, with a group of like-minded Commoners, sets off to find Cromwell, believing he will uphold their rights as he pledged before the war. But politicians’ promises cannot always be trusted. Set in the turbulent and uncertain years following the execution of Charles I, Cromwell's Promise is a powerful story of personal and political betrayal.
Korunah's Gift
When his infant is stillborn, Tangalenna follows his eagle daemon, Korunah, to the edge of the forest to find a replacement. The child he comes across is ten-year-old Ellie and her abduction endangers him and all his people. For Tangalenna belongs to the Meelayginee, a clan of indigenous Tasmanians that live deep in the South West Wilderness as they and their ancestors have done for millennia, their existence unsuspected by the modern world. And while Ellie learns to assimilate into their culture, her presence has unforeseen and devastating consequences for them all. Print editions are now on sale, please order though your local bookshop if they do not have it in stock!
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9932398-6-1
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-9932398-7-8