A.F. Harrold
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afharrold.com
A.F. Harrold
@afharrold.com
960 followers 720 following 250 posts
Poet, performer, children's author.

The Imaginary, The Worlds We Leave Behind, Fizzlebert Stump, Greta Zargo and others.

www.afharroldkids.com
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afharrold.com
I honestly have no idea what actual kids (teens, I guess?) would make of it, but Fishfolk, by Steven Quincy-Jones (pub. by Firefly), is the best mythic-Doggerland-survival-tale-written-in-Beowulf-footed-prose-poetry, I've read for yonks. I think you'd dig it, Louie, if you've not found it already.
Fishfolk book cover. Blue-green Hokusai-ish wave with added tentacles, threatening a couple of figures by a straggly tree. By Steven Quincey-Jones. Smashing book.
August 3, 2025 at 8:48 PM
afharrold.com
When it's too hot to actively hate one another...
Two melted cats, Vincent and Susan, ignoring one another, in seperate puddles.
July 3, 2025 at 6:25 AM
afharrold.com
Further adventures in comfortable pillow land. Susan and some Joan Aiken/Quentin Blake loveliness.
Susan, a ginger cat, on a windowsill leaning her cheek on the pointy edge of some books.
June 16, 2025 at 7:09 AM
afharrold.com
Everybody needs a rocking chair for a pillow, everybody needs a rocking chair...

Or so Vincent thinks.
Grey cat, Vincent, using a rocking chair as a pillow. Grey cat, Vincent, using a rocking chair as a pillow.
June 1, 2025 at 12:21 PM
afharrold.com
Had a nice visit to Waterstones, Finchley Road, this afternoon. Plenty of signed books left for you all!

@bloomsburyed.bsky.social @literaryvegan.bsky.social
@waterstones.bsky.social
Poet (AF Harrold) with books (Pocket Book of Pocket Poems).
May 30, 2025 at 2:44 PM
afharrold.com
My cat. Not my cat.
Vincent. Lucifer.
May 25, 2025 at 11:48 AM
afharrold.com
Just read this excellent kids-folk-horror-walk-away-from-Omelas-wickerman-is-a-river-adventure from @darrensimpson44.bsky.social and @pushkinchildrens.bsky.social. Gripping, gruesome, dark and dripping. Beware the woods and the reanimated child corpses... #Thirst out in September. A Good Thing.
Red book cover. Blue stream/zombie. Title is 'Thirst', written by Darren Simpson. Back cover: 'Simpson is a compelling writer... He has a marvellous sense of the uncanny' PHILIP WOMACK A deliciously spine-tingling novel about a cursed river and the town that worships it, from the two-time Carnegie Medal nominated author, Darren Simpson. Perfect for fans of spooky, action-packed teen reads, such as Alan Garner's The Owl Service, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Frances Hardinge's The Lie Tree. Darren Simpson's previous books have been widely acclaimed: his first novel Scavengers was a Guardian Book of the Year, and Furthermoor was a Waterstones Best Book of the Year. A Sarah Odedina Book PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2025 • £9.99 9781782695721 PAPERBACK • B-FORMAT PB ORIGINAL WITH FLAPS 198 X 129MM FOR PUBLICITY ENQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT VICKI@PUSHKINPRESS.COM Back cover: A Sarah Odedina Book PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2025 • £9.99 9781782695721 PAPERBACK • B-FORMAT PB ORIGINAL WITH FLAPS 198 X 129MM FOR PUBLICITY ENQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT VICKI@PUSHKINPRESS.COM First page: 1 HOUNDS AND HARES Gorse felt the scratch of thorn, the trickle of blood. But still he ran on, ducking along the undergrowth and diving through bramble. The forest's canopy rolled by above his head, and though his breaths came loud and hard, he could hear his pursuer gaining on him, kicking through shrubs not far behind. "Hop with baste, ob little hare," sang a panting voice. "This hungry hound your flesh will tear." Gorse couldn't outrun Burdock-he'd always been the slower of the two — so he tried to outmanoeuvre him by gripping a low branch and swinging himself around its tree. He was sprinting suddenly in the opposite direction, and Burdock - skidding to a stop as Gorse whipped by —swore and stretched out his fingers. He grasped at empty air, just short of Gorse's sleeve.
May 19, 2025 at 2:26 PM
afharrold.com
The view from my desk, this morning!
A fox on a fence.
May 18, 2025 at 11:53 AM
afharrold.com
Have you got your tail under control? Vincent has.
Vincent, a cat, has his tail under control. Vincent, a cat, has his tail under control.
May 6, 2025 at 8:04 AM
afharrold.com
Pity poor Susan.
Susan, a ginger cat, sat in a shoebox looking frightfully doleful. No one knows.
May 1, 2025 at 6:22 PM
afharrold.com
Sunday's going well.
Vincent and Susan, two cats, flat on the floor.
April 27, 2025 at 11:24 AM
afharrold.com
Vincent knows where his tail is. It is his.
Vincent, a grey cat, has two paws on his tail. It is under control. No one knows it so well as he.
April 24, 2025 at 4:09 PM
afharrold.com
Vincent knows where his tail is. Do you?
Vincent, a beautiful grey cat, is dozing on his rocking chair, with one one paw holding down his tail, as usual.
April 18, 2025 at 10:40 AM
afharrold.com
This was Vincent, Wednesday evening, in my shed, waiting for folks to arrive for DnD. He was the TPK they never saw coming...
A beautiful, but stupid, grey cat, sat very neatly on a map on a table set up for gaming, in a shed at the end of the garden where nerdy things happen. (Including, occasionally, some writing.)
April 12, 2025 at 6:42 PM
afharrold.com
For any teachers looking for a treat for their class this summer term (or in the autumn), or for anyone else thinking they're bored of the usual tosh that lands on their doormats, why not consider signing up for a handwritten-poems-on-postcards subscription?

www.afharroldkids.com/poetry-postc...
Picture of a whole bunch of random postcards with some poems written on them...
April 7, 2025 at 9:36 AM
afharrold.com
Sometimes Vincent doesn't want to think about his feet.
Vincent is a grey cat on a rocking chair and all his feet are over there. Vincent is a grey cat on a rocking chair and all his feet are over there.
April 4, 2025 at 6:10 AM
afharrold.com
These are the times, from my pal Chris Riddell...
Picture of big yellow Trump with little Vance, from Instagram. Chris's comment says: "I was invited to contribute a piece to the Dr Seuss exhibition at the Bologna Children's Book fair. They asked me to take How The Grinch Stole Christmas as inspiration. Like me, Theodore Geisel, aka Dr Seuss exhibition at, was a political cartoonist who famously lampooned the 'American First' movement in World War Two so I decided to lampoon a modern day successor. I thought Dr Seuss would have approved. However today I was informed that my image was too political and the Dr Seuss estate was withdrawing permission for it to be displayed. Theodore would have been outraged..."
March 29, 2025 at 2:05 PM
afharrold.com
Oh, and the magnolia's started up...
Little magnolia tree with pink-white petals that taste of ginger and will fall off in the slightest breeze. Little magnolia tree with pink-white petals that taste of ginger and will fall off in the slightest breeze.
March 28, 2025 at 11:09 AM
afharrold.com
Every now and then I like to remind myself that Charles Mingus had a toilet trained cat. Big Kitty.
Photo from a book of Big Kitty, a black and white cat, on the toilet. Excerpt from book: "That summer, the Minguses moved to 1594 3rd Avenue. For $70 a month, they lived a year in the hotel-sized room with a kitchenette in one corner. It was next to the El, whose noise woke them up each day at 6:00 A.M. He painted one wall with an abstract mural he'd laid out with masking tape And he toilet-trained his cat. Mingus found Big Kitty under a car outside a club. When the neighbors complained about the litter box on the fire escape, he remembered a Phoenix couple hed stayed with on a Norvo trip. They had toilet-trained Siamese cats. He knew exactly how to do it. He rigged a cardboard box on the toilet with ropes to lift it off, and cut a small hole in the bottom, spread a lot of paper, then cut the sides of the box down to that level. He gradually made the box disappear. It was as ingenious as his shoeshine box. Cheap window air-conditioners didn't exist, so in summer millions headed to movie theaters, which were chilled to meat-locker temperatures. It was one way the industry was counterattacking TV. Charles and Celia went to the movies a lot. Art films like Jean Cocteaus Blood of a Poet and Orphée were among his favorites, because of the way they dealt with the trials of the Romantic artist. In the middle of a heat wave, they went to Orchard Beach one night. He brought baloney and cheese and good bread and fruit and spread out a blanket. When the temperature suddenly plunged, they nearly froze. Max Roach told them about Camp Unity, a spot upstate started by commu-" Book cover: Myself When I Am Real, the lufe and music of Charles Mingus, by Gene Santoro.
March 27, 2025 at 9:07 AM
afharrold.com
One of these feet is not like the others, one of these feet is out on its own...

Oh, Vincent's lovely feet.
Grey cat with four feet, three together, one in a different postcode. Grey cat with four feet, three together, one in a different postcode.
March 18, 2025 at 1:07 PM
afharrold.com
Penultimate school of World Book Day month...
School visitor sticker with picture of a poet on it.
March 14, 2025 at 4:05 PM
afharrold.com
Vincent sleeps as if his feet have been drawn by AI.
Vincent, a grey cat, on a rocking chair, in the sunshine, with too many feet at eldritch angles.
March 9, 2025 at 1:11 PM
afharrold.com
Ouch, this hurts. No designers available that day.
March 4, 2025 at 3:24 PM
afharrold.com
Am on a train to visit a school in Cambridge, so I'll share this nugget of advice I remembered from the childhood times following mum round the front of department stores trying the free perfumes.

From #TheBookOfNotEntirelyUsefulAdvice by me & @mini3grey.bsky.social (@bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social)
Book page. Dog wrapped in string of sausages, with a poem. (See next picture for poem text.) Gravy is Not Perfume People who dab gravy on their wrists and below their ears get eaten by dogs more often than people who don't. So, if your mother says to do it, be sure to say you won't. Book cover. Big yellow. With mouse and poet and lots of badges, not badgers. The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice. Spectacularly silly poems by A.F. Harrold Fizzingly fun illustrations by Mini Grey
February 27, 2025 at 12:19 PM
afharrold.com
Vincent's sleeping hard this morning...
A grey cat sleeping on his head. Very curled up like a curling stone, sans handle.
February 27, 2025 at 8:46 AM