Furry Writers' Guild

May’s Book of the Month is Kismet, a science fiction novel by Watts Martin.

The River: a hodgepodge of arcologies and platforms in a band around Ceres, full of dreamers, utopians, corporatists—and transformed humans, from those with simple biomods to the exotic alien xenos and the totemics, remade with animal aspects. Gail Simmons, an itinerant salvor living aboard her ship Kismet, has docked everywhere totemics like her are welcome…and a few places they’re not.

But when she’s accused of stealing a databox from a mysterious wreck, Gail lands in the crosshairs of corporations, governments, and anti-totemic terrorists. Finding the real thieves is the easy part. To get her life back, Gail will have to confront a past she’s desperate not to face—and what’s at stake may be more than just her future.

Kismet is available in paperback from FurPlanet and DRM-free ebook from Bad Dog Books, as well as paperback and ebook (in an alternate cover edition) from Amazon.

We had one new member join the FWG in March, and one associate member. Welcome to Blarginator, and to Adam Kellogg of Taomerle Publishing Association! If you’d like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

Miriam “Camio” Curzon, TJ Minde, Jaden Drackus, and Skunkbomb have had stories accepted into Fang 8. Jaden’s story “Prelude to Adventure” also appears in the Fur The More program book.

TJ Minde, Mary E. Lowd, and Madison Keller will appear in the Arcana tarot anthology edited by Madison “Makyo” Scott-Clary. In addition, Madison had a story accepted into Roar 8, and Mary’s story “Missing: Friendly Spook” appeared in the April issue of Fantasia Divinity.

Allison “Sibir” Thai also has a story forthcoming in Roar 8, as well as in Symbol of a Nation and Werewolves vs. Fascism.

Kris Schnee’s novel Thousand Tales: Learning to Fly is now available from Amazon.

CopperSphinx’s poem and illustration will appear in Furlandia 2017’s convention book.

Sean Rivercritic was interviewed by the “South Afrifur Pawdcast” (link goes to audio on YouTube).

If you’d like to be listed here, please post your sales/publications to the Member News section of the FWG Forum! It’s the primary source for these news bits.

There are no new furry-specific markets that we’re aware of that opened in April (although there’s at least one that’s opening in May: check the forum thread linked below). We update the listings on the web site fairly frequently, so check to see what is (and isn’t) listed there:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Also, Thurston Howl maintains a Google Calendar with submission opening and closings for both furry and “furry-friendly” anthologies.

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

It’s election season! The FWG election is underway, slightly late but on schedule to wrap up on time. Currently, there’s one candidate declared for president (Makyo) and one for VP (Chipotle, the current president). The declaration period runs through the end of this week, May 12th. Check the forums and Twitters for more information.

Thanks to Sean Rivercritic of Anthroaquatic (and a past FWG president and current forum administrator), the FWG now has a forum dedicated to offering Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) of member works.

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats continue to take place on the FWG Slack channel, while the Thursday chats continue to take place on the shoutbox.

As usual, we’d like to keep recruiting you to the FWG Goodreads group: add things to our members’ bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that), start conversations, draw rabbit ears on other authors’ head shots, and so on.

Have a terrific month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and Zootopia emoji to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

April 2017 brings us a second Book of the Month. (This is totally not because we skipped the BotM post in March.)

Our second Book of the Month for April is GENMOS: Gathering Storms, a young adult science fiction novel by Stephen Coghlan.

I’m writing this letter to you because I want to tell you how my family, the Genmos, became recognized as living beings.

It all started years ago, when my dad used a government contract to create super-soldiers for his own needs. After almost a decade of providing limited success, the project was canceled and we were ordered destroyed. Unwilling to kill his children, dad hid us throughout the country, splitting us up from each other.

Just after my eighth birthday, my oldest sister’s guardian died, and she was forced to live on the streets. After several witnesses reported seeing her, it sparked a race to recover her, and my other siblings, between my father and the agency that had ordered us destroyed. That night began my people’s fight for our rights, our freedom and our very lives.

I’ve collected writings from my siblings and have tried to put them into an order that I hope makes sense for you. This is our story.

Gathering Storms is published by Thurston Howl Publications and is available in paperback from Amazon.

Art by Teagan Gavet

April 2017’s Book of the Month is Rechan’s short story collection, Intimate Little Secrets.

From just a fleeting spark to the last burning coals, relationships burn our fingers and set our passions aflame. Even when extinguished, the embers can still smolder and scorch.

When Luis’s ex comes back into his life, the cost of what he wants might mean the loss of something more. Jacob needs peace with his family, an order perhaps too tall for Desiree to provide. Marjani must make amends for an indiscretion. A confession falls apart, leaving Janine caught in the gears of a messy arrangement. Strait-laced Conner has to navigate a new world both confusing and rife with hurt feelings.

In these nine stories, imperfect people brave the fire for moments of perfection.

Intimate Little Secrets is available now in print from FurPlanet and DRM-free ebook from Bad Dog Books, and may be available on Amazon and other ebook retailers.

We had five new members join the FWG in March—welcome to Ellis Aen, Sisco Polaris, Mark Engels, James Stone, and Halfbloodcheetah! If you’d like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

Frances Pauli published The Earth Tigers, the first book in her Star Spiders series, in early March.

Jako Malan’s novel ReWritten is now available for pre-order from Goal Publications.

Rechan’s short story collection Intimate Little Secrets is now available from FurPlanet.

Mary E. Lowd was interviewed by “dark fiction” blog ShadowSpinners, and wrote a guest post for them: “When Furry Fiction Meets Dark Fiction.”

If you’d like to be listed here, please post your sales/publications to the Member News section of the FWG Forum! It’s the primary source for these news bits.

We’ve updated the markets on the FWG web site, cleaning out closed/defunct markets and adding a few new ones. Check out the additions and ongoing markets:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Also, Thurston Howl maintains a Google Calendar with submission opening and closings for both furry and “furry-friendly” anthologies.

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats continue to take place on the FWG Slack channel, while the Thursday chats continue to take place on the shoutbox.

As usual, we’d like to keep recruiting you to the FWG Goodreads group: add things to our members’ bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that), start conversations, draw rabbit ears on other authors’ head shots, and so on.

Have a terrific month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and coyote treats to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

We had four new members join the FWG in February—welcome to Allan Anderson, Mark Blickley, Hakuzo Sionnach, and Lisa Timpf! If you’d like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

If you’d like to be listed here, please post your sales/publications to the Member News section of the FWG Forum! It’s the primary source for these news bits.

Dwale was accepted into FurPlanet’s ROAR 8.

Mary E. Lowd had two stories hit publication in March, “On the Eve of the Apocalypse” in Theme of Absence and “Hidden Intentions” in the March/April issue of Analog.

Amy Fontaine’s story “A Fate Purse Than Death” has been accepted to The Supreme Archvillain Election Anthology from Unbelievable Universe.

Weasel (of Weasel Press) published the story “the day runs away” in the literary journal 1947.

Miles Reaver was accepted into the forthcoming second volume of Fred Patten’s Dogs of War anthology.

Carmen K. “CopperSphinx” Welsh has a forthcoming story, “Sleeping With Wolves,” in Typewriter Emergencies.

Alice “Huskyteer” Dryden has a story in issue 4 of the Werewolves Vs. series, Werewolves vs. Space.

• Furry Frolics (tentative title) is a new anthology from Thurston Howl, edited by Fred Patten, paying in contributors’ copies only. Looking for stories that are humorous, and lean into the animal aspect a bit (i.e., the stories wouldn’t work with all-human characters). Word count: 2,500–8,000. Deadline: October 1, 2017. Submission Guidelines.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats continue to take place on the FWG Slack channel, while the Thursday chats continue to take place on the shoutbox.

As usual, we’d like to keep recruiting you to the FWG Goodreads group: add things to our members’ bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that), start conversations, draw rabbit ears on other authors’ head shots, and so on.

Have a terrific month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and furry Slack bots to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

February 2017’s Book of the Month is Dogs of War, edited by Fred Patten.

Men have made war for gold, for land, and to put others in chains for millennia. No invention or philosophy has changed that, not gunpowder, not airplanes, not democracy, or even splitting the atom. Whatever the era, whatever the weapon, man has made war on his neighbors. The nature of conflict never changes, because human nature has not changed.

But how might that change if it were no longer just humanity going to war—if animal instincts, strengths and skill were to join the battlefield?

Dogs of War is an anthology exploring what warfare looks like when the combatants are no longer fully human. It contains twenty-three stories about how war changes when those who do the fighting have changed, and how much it stays just the same.

Dogs of War contains the following short stories:

• “Nosy and Wolf,” Ken MacGregor
• “After Their Kind,” Taylor Harbin
• “Succession,” Devin Hallsworth
• “Two If By Sea,” Field T. Mouse
• “The Queens’ Confederate Space Marines,” Elizabeth McCoy
• “The Loving Children,” Bill McCormick
• “Strike, But Hear Me,” Jefferson P. Swycaffer
• “End of Ages,” BanWynn Oakshadow
• “Shells On the Beach,” Tom Mullins
• “Cross of Valor Reception for the Raccoon, Tanner Williams, Declassified Transcript,” John Kulp
• “Last Man Standing,” Frances Pauli
• “Hunter’s Fall,” Angela Oliver
• “Old Regimes,” Gullwulf
• “The Shrine War,” Alan Loewen
• “The Monster in the Mist,” Madison Keller
• “Wolves in Winter,” Searska GreyRaven
• “The Third Variety,” Rob Baird
• “The Best and Worst of Worlds,” Mary E. Lowd
• “Tooth, Claw and Fang,” Stephen Coghlan
• “Sacrifice,” J.N. Wolfe
• “War of Attrition,” Lisa Timpf
• “Fathers to Sons,” MikasiWolf
• “Hoodies and Horses,” Michael D. Winkle

Dogs of War is available now in print from FurPlanet.

We had four new members join the FWG in January—welcome to John Giezentanner, David Green, Gullwulf, and Devin Hallsworth! If you’d like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

If you’d like to be listed here, please post your sales/publications to the Member News section of the FWG Forum! It’s the primary source for these news bits.

Joel “Zarpaulus” Kreissman’s novel The Pride of Parahumans was published at the beginning of January by Thurston Howl Publications.

Fred Patten accepted stories from Dwale, Thurston Howl, and Jaden Drackus for Dogs of War II. Jaden’s short “Stealing the Show” also was accepted by Thurston Howl’s Wolves anthology.

Madison Keller had a story accepted into Tarl Hoch’s Purrfect Tails anthology.

Renee Carter Hall’s story “The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon” has been released as an audiobook on Audible (also available on Amazon).

Alice “Huskyteer” Dryden was interviewed for the Ursa Major Awards website. (Her short story “The Analogue Cat” won both the UMA and the Cóyotl Award for 2015.)

• Infurno: The Nine Circles of Hell is an anthology from Thurston Howl Publications, paying in contributors’ copies only. Looking for stories themed around Dante’s Inferno, from 2,500 to 8,000 words in length. Deadline: August 1, 2017. Submission Guidelines.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats continue to take place on the FWG Slack channel, while the Thursday chats continue to take place on the shoutbox.

As usual, we’d like to keep recruiting you to the FWG Goodreads group: add things to our members’ bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that), start conversations, draw rabbit ears on other authors’ head shots, and so on.

Have a terrific month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and wince-inducing puns on the word “fur” to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

Welcome to our newest members, Jaden Drackus and Sibir! If you’d like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

If you’d like to be listed here, please post your sales/publications to the Member News section of the FWG Forum! It’s the primary source for these news bits.

Jako Malan, Televassi, Frances Pauli, Alice Dryden, and Mary E. Lowd sold stories to Fred Patten’s anthology Symbol of a Nation.

Bill “Greyflank” Kieffer has sold a short story collection set in his “Aesop’s World” milieu to Jaffa Books.

Fred Patten’s book Furry Fandom Conventions, 1989–2015, will be available from McFarland Books later this month. It’s already available from Amazon for preorder.

Speaking of Fred, his latest FurPlanet anthology, Dogs of War, is premiering at Further Confusion this January with a boggling 23 stories, many of which are by FWG members (including a couple who are getting their membership via this publication).

And, speaking of FurPlanet and FC, Kyell Gold’s new Forester Universe novel, Love Match, and Watts Martin’s science fiction novel Kismet both debut there.

• Arcana is a new anthology of furry fiction themed around the Tarot, edited by Madison “Makyo” Scott-Clary and published by Thurston Howl. The anthology will accept twenty-two submissions, one for each of the major arcana cards. Length: 2,000–5,000 words. Payment: 0.5¢/word. Deadline: March 31, 2017. Submission guidelines.
• Furlandia, the furry con in Portland, is looking for stories of 1,000–3,000 word length, themed around “1929: Age of Prosperity.” No deadline or pay rate given, although most con books pay in copies only. Submission guidelines.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

If you’ll be at Further Confusion in San Jose, come see the FWG at the Meet and Greet on Sunday, or attend any of the dozen other writing-related panels—most of the panelists are FWG members!

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats continue to take place on the FWG Slack channel, while the Thursday chats continue to take place on the shoutbox.

As usual, we’d like to keep recruiting you to the FWG Goodreads group: add things to our members’ bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that), start conversations, draw rabbit ears on other authors’ head shots, and so on.

Have a terrific month and start to the new year! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and coffee to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

December 2016’s Book of the Month is The Time He Desires by Kyell Gold, a short novel in FurPlanet’s “Cupcakes” line, with illustrations by Kamui.

After thirty years, Aziz’s marriage now consists mostly of arguing about whether to sell their store to a developer. His wife has a social life, interests and plans for the future, but the pawnshop is Aziz’s connection to his community. And then one day a desperate fox rushes into the shop looking for the honeymoon tape his husband sold. Seizing on this chance to make a difference, the cheetah steps up to help save their crumbling marriage. A gay couple might not show him the way to a new life, but he’s running out of ways to save his old one.

The Time He Desires is available now in print from FurPlanet, and should shortly be available in ebook from Bad Dog Books and available on Amazon and other ebook retailers.

Welcome to our newest member, John Kulp! If you'd like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

Tarl "Voice" Hoch is starting a small press called "Armoured Fox Press," for publishing both furry and non-furry material, as well as selling other furry small press books at Canadian cons.

Frances Pauli's story "Domestic Violence" appears in Domesticated Velociraptors (The Midnight Writers' Anthology Book 1).

The second volume of Civilized Beasts, the poetry anthology from Weasel Press, sent out acceptances in November. FWG poets in the volume include Altivo Overo, Madison "Makyo" Scott-Clary and Televassi.

Televassi sold a story to Fred Patten's anthology Dogs of War.

Madison "Makyo" Scott-Clary's article "Coming Out in Tech: Communication is Key" appeared in The New Stack.

Bill "Greyflank" Kieffer was interviewed by Ginger Nuts of Horror for his novella The Goat: Building the Perfect Victim.

Madison Keller's short story "Romancing the Tombstone" appeared in the Northwest Independent Writers Association's anthology Artifact.

Alice "Huskyteer" Dryden sold a short story to the forthcoming Hot Dish 2.

Donald Jacob Uitvlugt's story "The Sands of Rubal-Khali" appears in issue #4 of Cirsova.

Mary E. Lowd's flash fiction piece "Of Cakes and Robots" appeared in Theme of Absence. In addition, her story "The Hand-Havers," originally published in Analog, has been reprinted online in The Lorelei Signal.

Thurston Howl Publication's Seven Deadly Sins anthology accepted stories from T.J. Minde, Dwale, and Systematic Weasel. In addition, Weasel's novella "We Live for Half-Moons" is now available from THP.

Fred Patten's book Furry Fandom Conventions, 1989–2015, will be published in January 2017 by McFarland Books.

• Mamono Menagerie: A Monster Girl/Boy Erotica Anthology will be Tarl Hoch's first anthology from Armoured Fox Press. Length: 3,000–12,000 words preferred. Payment: 0.5¢/word. Deadline: May 1, 2017. Read the FWG forum post for submission details.
• Weasel Press is turning their anthology Typewriter Emergencies into a biannual "journal of furry lit." Length: stories up to 2500 words, articles/review up to 1000 words. Payment: 1¢/word. The reading period for issue #1 closes February 10, 2017. Forum announcement post; submission guidelines.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Furry Book Month! Stay tuned for future promotions.

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats continue to take place on the FWG Slack channel, while the Thursday chats continue to take place on the shoutbox. There may be changes coming to the chat schedule next year, and changes in forum software are under consideration–which may kill the shoutbox completely. Watch the current forum for more information and weigh in if you have an opinion!

As usual, we'd like to keep recruiting you to the FWG Goodreads group: add things to our members' bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that), start conversations, draw rabbit ears on other authors' head shots, and so on.

Have a terrific month and holiday season! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and coffee to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

November 2016’s Book of the Month is Fragments of Life’s Heart, an anthology edited by Laura “Munchkin” Lewis and Stefano “Mando” Zocchi.

They say Love is the oldest story on Earth, but we don’t have to tell it the same way every time. How many ways are there to explore our feelings that we may have never even considered? Countless fragments of different worlds, all held together by the greatest force of all.

Join us as we explore the many different forms of love—family love, forbidden love, love that embraces what society always taught was wrong. Love can bloom, thrive, and end. Love can heal, mesh, and blend. We’re all Fragments trying to stick together.

Fragments of Life’s Heart includes 17 stories, many of which are from FWG members:

• “Tending the Fires,” Jess E. Owen
• “Transitions,” Mog Moogle
• “The Mistress of Tidwell Manor,” Renee Carter Hall
• “Yet Time and Distance,” Kris Carver
• “Polynomials,” Fever Low
• “Raise Your Voice,” Stefano “Mando” Zocchi
• “Going Out,” T.C. Powell
• “Harvest Home,” Altivo Overo
• “The Foreigner,” Dwale
• “Trade All the Stars,” Watts Martin
• “Draw to the Heart,” Ocean Tigrox
• “Paint the Square-Cut Sky,” Slip-Wolf
• “Hearth Soup,” Laura “Munchkin” Lewis
• “Brass Candy Girl,” M.C.A. Hogarth
• “Footsteps,” Televassi
• “Rain Check,” Field T. Mouse
• “The Soul of Wit,” Daniel Lowd

The anthology is published by Weasel Press, and is available from the publisher as well as Amazon, Rabbit Valley and major ebook sellers.

October 2016’s book of the month is Dog Country, by Malcolm F. Cross.

A crowdfunded civil war is Azerbaijan’s only hope against its murderous dictatorship. The war is Edane Estian’s only chance to find out if he’s more than what he was designed to be.

He’s a clone soldier, gengineered from a dog’s DNA and hardened by a brutal training regime. He’d be perfect for the job if an outraged society hadn’t intervened, freed him at age seven, and placed him in an adopted family.

Is he Edane? Cathy and Beth’s son, Janine’s boyfriend, valued member of his MilSim sports team? Or is he still White-Six, serial number CNR5-4853-W6, the untroubled killing machine?

By joining a war to protect the powerless, he hopes to become more than the sum of his parts.

Without White-Six, he’ll never survive this war. If that’s all he can be, he’ll never leave it.

Dog Country is available exclusively as a Kindle ebook from Amazon ($4.99 to buy, or available through Kindle Unlimited).

Welcome to our newest members: Bruno Schafer, Jako Malan, and Stephen Coglan! In addition, welcome Sean and Andrew Rabbitt–perhaps better known as Rabbit Valley–to the FWG as associates! If you’re not a member of the Guild and you’d like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

Tor Books has bought the sequel to Lawrence M. Schoen’s Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard. In addition, Les Editions de L’Instant has bought the French language translation rights for Barsk.

Thurston Howl Publications released Wolf Warriors III: Winter Wolves, the third edition of their charity anthology in support of the National Wolfwatcher Coalition. It includes works by, among others, Alice Dryden, Amy Fontaine, Renee Carter Hall, Bill Kieffer, BanWynn Oakshadow, Frances Pauli, and Televassi.

Madison Keller’s Flower’s Fang is now available as an audiobook.

Donald Jacob Uitvlugt’s short story “In the Days of the Witch-Queens,” originally published in the Menagerie of Heroes charity anthology, is now available as a 99¢ ebook on Amazon.

Fred Patten published a large article on The State of Furry Publishing on Dogpatch Press.

• Speaking of Lawrence Schoen, his press, Paper Golem LLC, is accepting submissions of novellas (20,000 to 40,000 words) for the fourth volume of the novella anthology series Alembical. Submission guidelines.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

October is Furry Book Month! The Furry Writers’ Guild has joined forces with some of our fandom’s great authors and publishers to offer special deals during the month. Visit the Furry Book Month page for more details and links to deals, talk about the books you’re reading on the FWG Forum, and make sure to leave a review of what you’re reading on Amazon or Goodreads—it really helps! Follow along on social media with the tag #FurryBookMonth.

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats continue to take place on the FWG Slack channel, while the Thursday chats continue to take place on the shoutbox. There’s some discussion of moving the Thursday chats, too, or going to just one chat a week—if you’d like to weigh in, visit the forum. Visit the forum anyway.

As usual, we’d like to keep recruiting you to the FWG Goodreads group: add things to our members’ bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that), start conversations, indoctrinate people.

The FWG blog desperately needs more love. If you would like to love it, consider writing a guest post. See our guidelines for the details.

Have a terrific (furry book) month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and spare hashtags to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

September 2016’s Book of the Month is ROAR 7, edited by Mary E. Lowd.

Welcome to a LEGENDARY volume of ROAR! That’s right, the theme for the seventh volume is legend, and it will take you on a journey from a fortune teller’s bamboo hut to the end of the world in the coils of a dead snake god, back in time to the Cretaceous and then up to the stars. You’ll meet tigers and cranes practicing Kung Fu, a singing frog, a gambling pigeon, a rap-star bearded dragon, a rhinoceros who’s friends with a goat, and several creatures you’ve probably never seen before.

The seventh volume of FurPlanet’s annual general audience anthology has 17 stories:

• “Crouching Tiger, Standing Crane,” Kyla Chapek
• “The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon,” Renee Carter Hall
• “The Torch,” Chris “Sparf” Williams
• “A Rock Among Millions,” Skunkbomb
• “The Pigeon Who Wished For Golden Feathers,” Corgi W.
• “Unbalanced Scales,” Bill Kieffer
• “Reason,” Heidi C. Vlach
• “Old-Dry-Snakeskin,” Ross Whitlock
• “Kitsune Tea,” E.A. Lawrence
• “A Touch of Magic,” John B. Rosenman
• “Long Time I Hunt,” Erin Lale
• “The Butterfly Effect,” Jay “Shirou” Coughlan
• “The Roar,” John Giezentanner
• “Trust,” TJ Minde
• “The Golden Flowers,” Priya Sridhar
• “A Thousand Dreams,” Amy Fontaine
• “Puppets,” Ellis Aen

ROAR 7 is available in print from FurPlanet and DRM-free ebook from Bad Dog Books, as well as from Amazon.

After a big July, we didn't induct any new members in August. Maybe our next new member will be you? If you'd like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

Members Mary E. Lowd, Skunkbomb and Frances Pauli sold stories to Scratchpost Press's The Society Pages, a forthcoming anthology.

Televassi will have a poem in Thurston Howl Publications' Wolf Warriors III, their charity anthology. In addition, his story from Gods With Fur will be reprinted in THP's 2017 wolf anthology.

From Spring's Storms, the sequel to Patrick "Bahumat" Rochefort and Keith Aksland's novel From Winter's Ashes, has begun serializing on the web.

GoAL Publications released the third (and final?) issue of their eponymous magazine.

• ROAR 8 is open for submissions (as of September 1). This general audience anthology always has a loose theme; 2017's is "Paradise." Editor: Mary E. Lowd. Publisher: FurPlanet. Length: 2,000–18,000 words; prefers 4,000–12,000. Payment: 0.5¢/word. Deadline: February 1, 2017. Submission call.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

The 2015 Cóyotl Awards were awarded at Rocky Mountain FurCon! The winners:

• Novel: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard, Lawrence M. Schoen
• Novella: Koa of the Drowned Kingdom, Ryan Campbell
• Short story: "The Analogue Cat," Alice Dryden
• Anthology: Inhuman Acts, Ocean Tigrox (editor)

Congratulations to all the winners! Remember, to the best of our knowledge, the Cóyotl is the only literary award you can hug. (Okay, you could hug a Hugo, but it wouldn't be comfortable.)

Thurston Howl set up a FWG Submission Deadlines Calendar using Google Calendar; you can visit it on the web, or subscribe in a calendar app of your choice. The calendar not only hits the markets that get picked up in this monthly newsletter; he does a good job of finding "furry-adjacent" markets.

While the Guild blog is not blogging as hard as it should be these days (your president-slash-editor accepts full blame), the forum remains quite active. If you are not part of the activity there, go add to it! Also, consider writing a guest post. See our guidelines for the details.

As always, the FWG Goodreads group needs more good reads. (Get it? I'm here all week.) Go add things to our members' bookshelf—see the instructions here on how.

Have a terrific month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and legal awoos to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

Tell us about yourself and a recent published project of yours.

I have been writing since 2012 and published my first novel near the end of 2014. My newest project is The Dragon Tax Book One, which came out in June 2016. This originally was published in 2015 as a short story in the anthology A Menagerie of Heroes, which went out of print just a few months later.

I’d had so much fun with the characters I’d already written several more stories of their continuing adventures. I’d planned on perhaps doing a series of linked short stories, but with the very first one out of print and hard to find, I scrapped that idea. However, I’d had to cut some scenes to fit in the word count limit and I had the idea to add back in those missing scenes and tighten up the story, making it a novella length work and republishing it as a stand alone first in the series.

Why do you like using “furry” characters in stories?

I enjoying figuring out how furry features and characteristics would change a society’s fundamental values. I also like using it to explore aspects of human behavior that wouldn’t come up in non-furry fiction.

What made you want to become a writer? Are there authors or books that strongly influenced you?

I was a huge bookworm and devoured the entire science fiction/fantasy section of the local library as I was growing up. I wanted to be a writer to tell the stories that filled my own head. However, I let others talk me out of pursing a career in writing and threw away everything I’d been writing in junior high and high school. With the advent of the Kindle I began reading many self-published works and was re-inspired to again put pen to page.

In high school I was inspired by the likes of Piers Anthony, Tracy Hickman, Walter Jon Williams, and Barbara Hambly. Lately I’ve been devouring A.E. Marling’s Enchantress series, Charles Stross’s Laundry files, and Jonathan Howard’s Necromancer series as well as many other books.

Tell us a bit about your writing process. Do you see yourself as a “pantser,” an outliner, or somewhere in between?

I’m an outliner all the way. Before I write a single sentence of my manuscript I’ll outline the plot, define all the major characters, and do high-level worldbuilding. As I write I will expand character profiles, add world-building details, and tweak the outline.

Do you have any advice you’d give other writers?

Don’t let other people discourage you and never stop writing. Read a lot, everything you can find, but especially books in your chosen genre.

What’s a project you’re working on now, or that may be coming out soon?

I’m currently juggling three projects—working on the next books in the Dragon Tax series, finishing up the final planned book in my Flower’s Fang universe, and outlining a new werewolf urban fantasy trilogy set in central Washington state that is as of yet un-named.

Where can people find you and your work?

All of my work can be found on Amazon or on my website, flowersfang.com.

August 2016’s Book of the Month is Sixes Wild: Echoes, by Tempe O’Kun.

Life’s not all whiskey and revelry for this bunny gunslinger. In a recent tangle, Six had cause to dynamite a lion crime lord in his silver mine. The kitty had the nerve to survive and vanish with one of the guns tied to her dead father’s spirit. A sensible hare would go to ground, lying low while she tracked down the varmint. And that’s just what she’d do, had she not stumbled into love with the local fruit bat sheriff. Love’s all well and good, but courting a gentleman when you’re no proper lady is a challenge Six never thought she would have to tackle.

All told, Frontier life is enough to trounce anybody. But then, Six Shooter has never been just any bunny.

Echoes is the sequel to Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny, which won a Cóyotl Award for best novel in 2011. It’s available in print from FurPlanet and Kindle ebook from Amazon. (It should be available as a DRM-free ebook from Bad Dog Books soon.)

Welcome to our newest members: Kris Carver, Jay “Shirou” Coughlan, TJ Minde, and Mog Moogle! If you’re not a member of the Guild and you’d like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

Sean Rivercritic has started a new publishing imprint, Goal Publications. (Also see Market News, below.)

The novel From Winter’s Ashes, co-written by member Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort (with Keith Aksland), is available on Amazon as an ebook.

Editor Fred Patten was interviewed on the Furry Times blog.

Madison Keller’s steampunk short “Poppy and the Great Expo,” originally in the 2016 Furlandia program book, is now available as an ebook. In addition, her novella Snow Flower is now available as an audiobook.

Member (and past president) Renee Carter Hall launched a bimonthly newletter.

Kris Schnee’s novel The Digital Coyote has been released in ebook and print form.

Mary E. Lowd sold two stories in July, one to Daily Science Fiction and one to Analog (which she notes is a furry story, “about a dragon/lizard-like alien”).

Daniel Potter published the second volume in his successful Freelance Familiar series, Marking Territory.

• Seven Deadly Sins: Furry Confessionals, themed around Dante’s seven deadly sins. Publisher: Thurston Howl Publications. Length: 2,500–8,000 words. Payment: contributor’s copy. Deadline: December 1, 2016. Submission call.
• Species is a projected anthology series in which each volume presents three sections—folktales and myths, reprints, and original stories. The first volume is Wolves. Publisher: Thurston Howl Publications. Length: 2,500–8,000 words. Rating: PG-13. Payment: contributor’s copy. Deadline: January 1, 2017. Submission call.
• Heat #14, annual anthology “in which sex or romance play an important role in the overall plot but are not the sole purpose for the story’s existence.” Editors: Dark End and Teagan Gavet. Publisher: Sofawolf Press. Length: 4,000–8,000 words. Payment: 1¢/word. Deadline: September 19, 2016. Submission call.
• While Goal Publications has wound down their eponymous magazine, they are now looking for “full-length works,” novels and novellas. Submission guidelines.
• The Symbol of a Nation, anthology themed around “furries that are the national animals of country.” (The guidelines get somewhat complex.) Editor: Fred Patten. Publisher: Goal Publications. Payment: 1¢/word. Deadline: December 1, 2016. Submission call.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

Member Malcolm F. Cross appeared in a brief profile on seminal science fiction blog File 770.

The World Fantasy Convention programming this year offers an “animal fantasy” panel which refers to Watership Down and The Book of the Dun Cow as being “in recent years.” We have a lot of work to do, people. (With some pressure, they added Kij Johnson’s The Fox Woman, so they’ve at least hit 1999. Progress! That also nearly doubles the number of women authors their programming refers to.)

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats have been successfully transplanted from the FWG forum shoutbox to the now-official FWG Slack. If you have no idea what any of this means, you haven’t visited the forum in a while, have you? Go visit it. There’s cool stuff there.

The FWG Goodreads group needs more love. Go add things to our members’ bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that). Start conversations. Put subversive happy faces with cat ears in your reviews of non-furry books. (No, don’t do that.)

The FWG blog also needs more love. If you would like to love it, consider writing a guest post. See our guidelines for the details.

Have a terrific month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and steampunk bats to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

New small presses explicitly targeting the furry market have been springing up over the last few years, while some of our older presses have been producing more titles. Meanwhile, the number of furry authors has grown steadily. Submission calls that might have received only a couple dozen submissions even three years ago receive three or four times that in mid-2016.

As fantastic as this growth is, the furry publishing scene is still tiny. Not only do writers know each other, writers tend to know publishers and vice-versa. For the most part, we’re all friends with one another, and we’re all figuring out this “creating a market” thing as we go. As far as I know, all the editors and publishers in furrydom became editors and publishers by fiat; some of us might have worked at college presses, but I’m not aware of anyone who worked for a major fiction publishing house or periodical, even as a slush reader. A lot of business gets conducted in…let’s call it a relaxed fashion.

As it turns out, “handshake contracts” are surprisingly common in the literary small press world, particularly poetry journals that pay in contributors’ copies rather than money, to the point where there’s a de facto industry standard for it. But when money changes paws, it’s important for both parties to nail down exactly what they expect of one another.

So let’s talk about contracts. What a publishing contract should do is fairly straightforward:

• Define the rights the author grants the publisher. In most cases, these are first publication rights—the story hasn’t been published anywhere else, including archive sites like Fur Affinity—with limited exclusivity: after an amount of time given in the contract passes, the author can publish the story somewhere else that accepts reprints. A six-month period of exclusivity is typical. (Note that magazines buy serial rights, but books and anthologies buy rights to a geographical region: North American rights, World rights, etc. You’re free to sell the book again to other publishers outside that geographical region; this is why novels often have different publishers in the US and Europe.)
• Define the amount the publisher is paying for those rights, how they’re paying it (check, Paypal, doubloons, etc.), and when they’re paying it. If you’re being paid by the word, the total amount you’re being paid should be specified here. Some contracts specify payment on acceptance; many specify it on publication. In either case, the contract should give a window (“within 30 days of publication”).
• Cover appropriate electronic and subsidiary rights. If the contract allows the publisher to archive your work indefinitely on a web site, do you have the right to withdraw it after a certain length of time? If this is a novel, are you granting the publisher rights to produce the ebook? (Some authors, like Kyell Gold, self-publish their ebooks.) What about any other subsidiary rights, like audiobooks?
• Give the publisher a deadline, so they can’t sit on the work indefinitely (“if the publisher fails to produce Great Furry Stories within one year of the execution date of this contract, rights revert back to the author”).
• Guarantee approval over content editing changes. The publisher should be able to fix spelling errors without running them by you, but not change your grizzled Vietnam vet protagonist to a twelve-year-old kid.
• In furry, it’s not unheard of for authors to end up paying for art out of their own pocket and have the publisher repay them. If you do this, get the reimbursement amount of the art in the contract, too, even if it has to be a single-paragraph addendum.

What a publishing contract shouldn’t do is also straightforward: it shouldn’t take any more rights than necessary, and it shouldn’t leave anything significant undefined. If the answer to “when do I get paid” or “when can I sell reprint rights to this story or put it up for my fans on FA” isn’t answered by the contract, there’s a problem. And it shouldn’t ask you to assign exclusive rights in perpetuity. (Carefully consider assigning even non-exclusive rights in perpetuity, especially for a flat rate.)

The SFWA Model Magazine Contract runs 8 pages, but there’s extensive annotation explaining each clause—and a few somewhat unusual clauses. In practice, most publishing contracts, at least for magazines and anthologies, don’t need to run more than a couple pages.

If you’re concerned about a clause in a contract, ask. If you’d like a clause changed, bring it up with your publisher and explain why. Contracts are negotiations, not “take it or leave it” propositions. And if a publisher insists on a clause you’re worried about, bring it up with the Guild. We may not be able to negotiate on your behalf, but we can let other members know about potential issues.

And one more thing. Contracts should be signed before work starts. Before the publisher sends the author any money, before the publisher starts going back and forth with the author on editorial changes, and for the love of Judy Hopps, before the publication goes on sale. If your story is a month away from publication and you haven’t seen a contract, ask the publisher. Better yet, ask when it’s two months away.

I suspect the advice in this column may make some publishers tear their fur out, and I’m sorry. But I’ve been sent contracts when—or even after—books and magazines went on sale. Sometimes I’ve never received a contract. As far as I can tell, my experience isn’t unusual. The more the furry publishing scene grows, the greater chance being lackadaisical has of causing serious problems for publishers, writers, or both.

Because we are all friends with one another, this subject can be hard to talk about. But getting contracts right helps everyone, publishers and writers alike.

I’ll talk about other considerations for publishing in other articles, including marketing, production and editorial. These are good for writers to know—and it’s good for writers if publishers know them, too.