Welcome.

Katie Metcalfe is an author, poet, blogger, photographer, songwriter and vocalist.

She's 41.9% Scandinavian and most people think she’s a bit too wyrd.

The work Katie does is dedicated to the North and winter, wilderness and wyrdness. Her latest book is a full-length collection of poetry entitled People Of The Sea Ice. 

Poet and senior lecturer Bob Beagrie mentored Katie for several years and said this about her work:

“Katie is a prolific writer and editor and her work has ranged from the confessional and therapeutic to acute social observation and formal exploration of what it is to be on the peripheries in terms of gender, style and social communication.

She has travelled further North to see if shamanic visions can still be found and brought back as sources of strength in everyday life – her recent work has developed a mythic, sometimes determinedly naïve aspect through ecological and non-logocentric concerns abound as well as a sophisticated search for an authenticity beyond her post-industrial urban landscape that is psychologically challenging as she struggles openly with the dualism of the modern and perceived natural self. The North in her poems is much more than a geographic location.” 

Daughters Of The North, the third album from her Witch Folk band Cave Mouth (for which she writes lyrics and performs vocals) is due for release in November 2021 via Non Posse Mori Records.

One of the projects she’s most proud of is Arctic Fever, a spoken word album made in collaboration with Crown of Asteria. Centered around the thawing of the Arctic, Arctic Fever portrays how climate change is impacting the peoples, flora and fauna of the far north.

In 2009, Katie founded the press Slice of the Moon Books. In the years the press was active, she launched numerous magazines and published several poetry anthologies including The Mountains You Cannot See: An Anthology of Poetry About Mental Health, Earth, We Are Listening: An Anthology of Eco Poetry and MAIDEN MOTHER CRONE.

She blogs at Wyrd Words & Effigies and also writes at The Girl With Cold Hands, a blog that looks at life in the north from every conceivable angle.

Katie has been known to take photographs. Debilitated by depression for much of 2019 and 2020, Katie re-discovered her creativity via photography.

She embarked on a month-long project in December 2020 called The Darkest Days through which she created photographs that explored the dark traditions, superstitions, myths and folklore surrounding Yule and Winter. She's been commissioned to create book covers and album art including work for Swedish black metal project Mara. Her photography website can be found here.

If you’re interested in digging deeper, Katie has been interviewed at Unquiet Things, Dark Pulse and Vargamor.

Katie is always excited to hear from folk (she leads a solitary life) so if you would like to get in touch, you can do so by sending an email to: katiemetcalfewriting@hotmail.com
 
 
 
 
 
 

"My new favourite book. This book is so finely crafted, beautifully written and painfully sad."
- Amazon Review

"All I can say is that I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book!"
- Amazon Review

"This is no book for kids or for those with a nervous disposition, as the author explores topics as dark as a young girl's family falling to the plague, and being buried alive by a bear."
- Life In Norway

"The settings are made so visible in this collection, each poem takes you to the freezing north and leaves you there. Very powerful literary art drawing parallels to our own traits. Unforgettable."
- Amazon Review