Literary · Uncanny · Speculative Fiction
Amy Kitcher
Fiction from the strange edges of ordinary life
Latest Story
The Messenger of Budapest
Trollbreath Magazine — Issue 7, 2026
A lyrical fantasy about an ageing pigeon, two statues, and an old magic hidden beneath the streets of Budapest.
Read the story ↗
About
Amy Kitcher is a working-class Welsh writer from the South Wales valleys. Her fiction moves between the literary, the uncanny, and the speculative, circling back again and again to power, memory, and the strange edges of ordinary life. She holds an MSc in Modern Foreign Languages and an MA in Contemporary War and Peace Studies.
Her first job, age 12, was a shop assistant. Since then, she's flipped burgers at McDonald's, taught English to a Cambodian businessman, been a (terrible) waitress, a (better) librarian, and a (good) lobbyist. Her current job involves visiting cemeteries and graveyards, and telling the stories of the dead.
In 2022–23, she was selected for Literature Wales's Representing Wales writers' development programme, mentored by former Children's Laureate Wales Eloise Williams. Her short fiction has appeared in Fairlight Books, Funny Pearls, Lucent Dreaming, Fictive Dream, Dime Show Review, Seize the Press, and Trollbreath Magazine.
Stories
Selected Fiction
Trollbreath Magazine — Issue 7, 2026
The Messenger of Budapest
A lyrical fantasy about an ageing pigeon, two statues, and an old magic hidden beneath the streets of Budapest.
Read the story ↗Seize the Press — Issue 13, 2026 · Mature themes
Tabula Rasa
A dystopian story of an alien refugee struggling to survive on Earth, told from the margins of a broken, hungry city.
Read the story ↗Lucent Dreaming — Issue 12, 2023
Butterfly Effect
A folkloric coming-of-age story about a girl whose refusal to be tamed unsettles everyone around her.
Read the story ↗Fictive Dream — 2019
Darkness Brighter Than the Sun
A story about inherited trauma, addiction, and the things a family buries in order to survive.
Read the story ↗Funny Pearls — 2019
Gift Ideas for Fantasy Writers
A tongue-in-cheek send-up of fantasy tropes, dressed up as a shopping guide.
Read the story ↗Dime Show Review — Flash Fiction, 2019
The Heart Beats Like a Drum
An old soldier's visit to a local museum reveals a macabre secret.
Currently not available online
Fairlight Books — 2018
New Year's Eve at the Nun's Purse
A darkly comic tale of a run-down Welsh pub, an old crush, and a will with strings attached.
Read the story ↗
Did you enjoy one of Amy's stories? Buy her a coffee to let her know!
Ko-fi.com/amykitcher
Recognition
Literature Wales — Representing Wales
Selected writer, 2022–23 cohort, mentored by former Children's Laureate Wales Eloise Williams
Writers of the Future
Silver Honourable Mention, December 2025
Where the Stories Come From
"My wanderings have shown me that the world is impossibly old and vast, and utterly indifferent to human struggle."
Amy Kitcher has survived a 6.2 earthquake, been run over crossing the street, and once shared a Parisian flat with a ghostly monk. She has watched minke whales in Icelandic fjords, stood by the eternal flames of Azerbaijan's Fire Mountain, camped in the Sahara, and seen the northern lights above her own back garden. Occasionally, some of this magic finds its way into her work.
Read the stories →Praise
What Readers Are Saying
I fell in love with
this piece on
first read.
Jennifer Reynolds, editor,
Trollbreath Magazine
— on "The Messenger of Budapest"
Amy's story brings to mind the within which dead warriors could be restored to life.
Rosy Adams, editor, (un)common: anthology of new Welsh writing — on "Darkness Brighter Than the Sun"
Transgressive genre grime
of the sort Seize the Press fans
have come to love and expect.
NM Whitley,
Short Story Rex
— on "Tabula Rasa"