Kit Reed, also known as Lillian Hyde CraigorLil(l)ian Craig Reed (June 7, 1932 – September 24, 2017),[1][2][3][4][nb 1] was an American author of both speculative fiction and literary fiction, as well as psychological thrillers under the pseudonym Kit Craig.
Reed was born Lillian Hyde Craig[6] on June 7, 1932, in San Diego, California.[nb 1] She was a daughter of schoolteacher Lillian Hyde and US Naval officer John R. Craig. She was nicknamed "Kitten" at an early age and later legally changed her name to Kit Reed.[3] Her father would command the submarine USS Grampus (SS-207), which was lost with all hands early in 1943, probably sunk by the Japanese.
By age 12, she had written a series of books about a stand-up bunny rabbit. At the College of Notre Dame of Maryland (now Notre Dame of Maryland University), nuns let her write short stories instead of a research paper for her senior thesis, allowing her to avoid the research she hated."[4]
Reed worked as a journalist for a number of years, including for The St. Petersburg Times and The New Haven Register. She won awards for a series of articles about juvenile courts in Connecticut[4] and twice was named "New England Newspaperwoman of the Year."[7]
Reed served as a professor and resident writer at Wesleyan University for decades. She was married to Joseph Reed and had three children including Kate Maruyama, who is also an author.[4] Reed died on September 24, 2017, at age 85, after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.[8]
The New York Times Book Review said about her short fiction in 2006: "Reed has a prose style that's pure dry ice, displayed in dystopian stories that specialize in bitterness and dislocation."[11]The Wall Street Journal said: "The title of Kit Reed's [2013] selection of her own short stories, The Story Until Now (Wesleyan), reminds us that although she has been writing award-winning fiction for some 50 years, she's still accelerating. The scope of these 35 stories is immense, their variety unmatched."[12]
