Katy Wimhurst and 'An Orchid in my Belly Button

 Bio:

Katy Wimhurst has had three collections of short stories published — An Orchid in My Belly Button (Elsewhen Press, 2025), Snapshots of the Apocalypse (Fly on the Wall Press, 2022) and Let Them Float (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). Her fiction has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies including: The Guardian, Writers’ Forum, Cafe Irreal, Kaleidotrope, Breath and Shadow, and ShooterLit. Her first book of visual eco poems was Fifty-One Trillion Bits (Trickhouse Press, 2023). She is housebound with the illness M.E.

Hi Katy, thanks for joining me today. I have a few questions that I’m sure will interest our readers. The first being: Out of all these tales, which is your favourite and why?

I think Existential Shrug is a favourite because I had fun writing it, inventing stuff for the future world, like doggits (dog-rabbit hybrids), advertisements on clouds, an imaginary band (Cosmic Flunk) and the Anti-Christmas League (ACL). I have to admit I laughed to myself when I thought up the idea of the ACL blowing up inflatable Santas outside Tescos, and I hope some readers find that darkly funny too. I like that the dystopia in the story is slightly off stage as the protagonist is indifferent to everything going on, and I was happy with the (invented) chorus of a Cosmic Flunk song that ends the story, tying up its threads.

Incidentally, mine happen to be An Orchid in my Belly Button but in particular Vanity Vines, I found that absolutely superb. Can you tell us how you distilled that idea?

The original idea of Vanity Vines came originally from looking at a string of beads house plant and thinking it would make good hair. Then, when I was trying to develop the idea of plant hair into a plot, I decided it would be interesting mixed with social media influencer culture. Because the story is satirical, I ended up telling it from the perspective of a very ordinary protagonist, a woman who tends/trims the plant hair of the influencers and models. She isn’t quite part of that world but buys wholly into it. As a foil, though, I gave her a more cynical husband who sees the possible pitfalls in having plant hair but appreciates the money she brings in.

Where do you get feedback, prior to submission and what are you working on now?

I get valuable feedback from writer friends via email and I sometimes use an online critique forum. The novella I am currently writing is a magical realism story with environmental themes. It is a development of one story in An Orchid in My Belly Button and is partly inspired by a true-life incident, the washing up of thousands of dead crustaceans on a beach in northern England. The story encompasses political corruption, and emotional and environmental toxins. 

If you were a character in one of your short stories, what questions would you ask yourself?

I think many of my characters would probably ask, ‘why on earth did you do that to me?’! As a writer, I often put them in dystopian settings or challenging or weird situations, where odd things happen and they have to draw on inner strength and other people to get through. Obviously, introducing tension early on in a short story is useful for creating a hook and if the stakes are high, it makes a more engaging read. (I remember watching the series Homeland and thinking — what can the writers do next to poor Carrie Mathison or Peter Quinn, the leading characters?)

What’s the strangest experience you’ve ever had, and if it affected your writing how so?

Getting severely sick with M.E., an illness that isn't always believed or taken seriously, tossed me into a strange underworld. I'd had mild M.E. for a decade before I developed it severely, so I was used to feeling crap as well as the dismissive stories doctors told about patients like me, but nothing prepared me for the devastating disability, nor for the shocking disbelief I suffered by medics. I felt trapped in a strange unsettling story where nothing I previously took for granted remained, including a reliable body. Severe chronic illness is like Alice in Wonderland, reworked by Franz Kafka - Alice in Lost-Her-Land. I only started writing fiction after I slowly began to improve, especially cognitively, from the illness. Writing fiction was a focus for my imagination, and my interest in dystopian settings expresses something about my experience of illness. I would like to say the experience also propelled me more towards the surreal but I had long been interested in surrealism (my PhD was on Mexican Surrealism).

Tell us about what you admire about your favourite book/author, and why.

I admire a lot of books, especially in the magical realism genre. What I most remember about such novels is the strange or

arresting images. For instance, Siddon Rock (2012) by Glenda Guest starts with Macha Connor returning from World War II, taking her clothes off on the train home, and walking through the remote town of Siddon Rock naked, with a rifle, dusty hat and her war boots. Each character has something unusual or eccentric about them — Alistair is a cross-dressing dressmaker who runs a haberdashery; Henry Abeline travels to Australia in the 19th century in search of a poisonous butterfly; Marge Redall is followed everywhere by a cloud of tiny blue shapes; and Caitlin Morgenstein has a cello upon which the names of her ancestors and relatives appear written when they die. The book has dark themes, so those startling images really lift it, making it magical.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Write, get feedback from people who know what they are talking about, take criticism in the spirit it is offered, and keep learning how to edit well. Most writers aren’t born; they develop the craft over years. And expect a lot of rejection until you start to get published at all. Writing isn’t for the faint hearted!

Blurb:

Offbeat short stories that explore our fragile world

These stories savour the surreal, flirt with magical realism, dabble with dystopia. A boy sees the ghosts of dead crabs. A girl

with a fox tail is bullied. A disenchanted woman sprouts orchids from her belly button. Fashion models pursue the trend of having plants as hair. Electronic goods amassing all over London herald an apocalypse. Darkness and wonder, the strange and the ordinary, interweave to offer an environmental and social portrait of our times. Guaranteed to evoke a response, whether a giggle, a gasp, or a nervous gulp, these stories will stay with you, enriching your perception of the world.

Surreal, absurdist, magical realist; Katy Wimhurst writes speculative fiction that meditates on our reality. Although bleak themes are examined – dystopian futures, the climate crisis, bullying – a quirky imagination and wry humour lift the tales above the ‘realm of grim’.

Extract:

An Orchid in My Belly Button

‘And you will be like a watered garden.’

Isaiah 58:11

I find the first one while on the toilet—a daisy stuck to my inner thigh, its petals closed. I must have picked it up in the garden. When I try to pluck it off, my skin tugs and I feel a twinge of pain. It can’t be sprouting from me, can it? Holding the stalk between fingertip and thumb, I pull it again gently and my mouth drops open in disbelief.

Back outside, my mind is hazy. I sit down and slip my hand under my skirt to touch the thing once more. Still there. Am I now one percent flower? A buoyant feeling slowly unfurls, like sap rising.

The wooden fence encloses the small garden on three sides. I have planted it so that flowers bloom all year; now the beds are spilling with fleabane, lavender, scabious, marjoram, and borage. I lie down, stretch my arms out like branches, and close my eyes. My head instinctively turns towards the sun.

Later that day, the presence of my daisy makes me bold enough to open the utility bills I’ve been avoiding. What else can I cut besides cancelling my subscription to Gardeners’ World and my annual visit to the Eden Project in Cornwall to get away from everything? I let out a breath and then log in to check my student loan balance, too. That night, sleep doesn’t come easily and my finger keeps reaching for the daisy.

On Saturday, another daisy budding next to the original lifts my heart. I have been wearing skirts, not wanting to flatten the flower against jeans, and I take care to walk with my feet wider apart than normal.

‘Why are you waddling?’ asks my friend Amy, when she drops in for a cup of tea.

‘Quack.’ I laugh off the comment. Some things are more magical if left a secret.

On Monday, a slight prickle on my toes alerts me to tiny green shoots appearing there. I crouch to inspect them. What might this be? Should I visit a doctor? Or a botanist? Are there people versed in both fields?

Katy’s media links

Bluesky @sylphsea.bsky.social

Instagram @whimsylph

Website: https://whimsylph.wordpress.com