Furry Writers' Guild

July 2016’s Book of the Month is Gods With Fur, a new anthology edited by Fred Patten and published by FurPlanet.

Art by Teagan Gavet

From the very beginning, mankind has found the divine in the shape of animals from across the world. Deities such as Ganesha, Coyote, Anubis, and The Monkey King—even Zeus took to the wing from time to time. In ancient Egyptian deserts, misty Central American rainforests, and across wind swept tundra, man has forever told stories of gods with fur, feathers, scales, or tusks.

Gods With Fur features twenty-three new stories of divine animals working their will upon the land. You may recognize gods such as Bastet, while other stories see authors working in their familiar worlds, such as M. R. Anglin’s Silver Foxes books or Kyell Gold’s Forester University books. Others are set in new worlds where the anthropomorphic gods have tales to tell us. We are proud to present this new furry view of divinity.

The majority of contributions in Gods With Fur are from FWG members. The full table of contents:

• “400 Rabbits,” Alice “Huskyteer” Dryden
• “Contract Negotiations,” Field T. Mouse
• “On the Run from Isofell,” M. R. Anglin
• “To the Reader…,” Alan Loewen
• “First Chosen,” BanWynn Oakshadow
• “All Of You Are In Me,” Kyell Gold
• “Yesterday’s Trickster,” NightEyes DaySpring
• “The Gods of Necessity,” Jefferson Swycaffer
• “The Precession of the Equinoxes,” Michael H. Payne
• “Deity Theory,” James L. Steele
• “Questor’s Gambit,” Mary E. Lowd
• “Fenrir’s Saga,” Televassi
• “The Three Days of the Jackal,” Samuel C. Conway
• “A Melody in Seduction’s Arsenal,” Slip-Wolf
• “Adversary’s Fall,” MikasiWolf
• “As Below, So Above,” Mut
• “Wings of Faith,” Kris Schnee
• “The Going Forth of Uadjet,” Frances Pauli
• “That Exclusive Zodiac Club,” Fred Patten
• “Three Minutes To Midnight,” Killick
• “A Day With No Tide,” Watts Martin
• “Repast (A Story of Aligare),” Heidi C. Vlach
• “Origins,” Michael D. Winkle

Welcome to our newest members, Mut and Invisiblewolf! If you’re not a member of the Guild and you’d like more information, read our membership guidelines.

Several publications with contributions from FWG members are premiering at Anthrocon 2016 over the June 30–July 4 weekend, including Gods With Fur (published by FurPlanet, edited by Fred Patten), FANG 7 (published by FurPlanet), ROAR 7 (published by FurPlanet, edited by Mary Lowd), Altered States (published, again, by FurPlanet, edited by Ajax B. Coriander, Kodiak Malone and Andres Cyanni Halden), and Sofawolf’s Heat #13. In addition, Fragments of Life’s Heart (published by Weasel Press, edited by Laura “Munchkin” Lewis and Stefano “Mando” Zocchi) will be premiering later this month.

Tempe O’Kun’s new novel Sixes Wild: Echoes (published by FurPlanet) will also be premiering at Anthrocon 2016.

Rechan sold a piece to Tarl “Voice” Hoch’s untitled science fiction horror anthology.

Mary E. Lowd’s (non-furry) story “Birthing Class” was published in Theme of Absence.

Frances Pauli’s story “Domestic Violence” was accepted in the Domestic Velociraptor anthology.

Madison Keller released her novella The Dragon Tax on Amazon; this is an expansion of her story from the RainFurrest 2015 program book.

Kris Schnee has entered his novel The Digital Coyote into Amazon’s “Kindle Scout” program, a competition for a publication contract.

M.C.A. Hogarth released her novel Only the Open, the fourth book in her Princes’ Game series.

Ongoing: Fred Patten’s next anthology for FurPlanet, The Dogs of War, is looking for original furry military-themed stories “preferably of 4,000 to 20,000 words.” The emphasis should be on military actions, not politics; Fred notes that despite the title, he’s looking for all kinds of anthropomorphic animals, not just dogs. Payment: ½¢ per word, on publication. Deadline: October 1, 2016. (Read the submission call.)

ROAR 8, FurPlanet’s annual general audience anthology, will again be edited by Mary E. Lowd. Next year’s theme is “Paradise.” It will be open for submissions from September 1, 2016 through February 1, 2017. (Read the submission call.)

Laura “Munchkin” Lewis’s charity poetry anthology, Civilized Beasts, is accepting submissions for a 2016 volume.

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.

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here. (Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!)

Elsewhere on the Internet, we have a Goodreads group with a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that).

Remember, we’re always open for guest blog post submissions from FWG members! See our guidelines for the details.

Have a creative and successful month! If you have news, suggestions, or other feedback to share, send an email to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

I’ve been working on a short story cycle that follows the residents of a fictional small town on the Oregon coast. Cannon Shoals is typical of such towns, intimate but clannish, full of people who are trying to balance their dreams against the reality of economic depression and the sense that the world is passing them by. I was inspired by my summers spent in the Santiam Valley, and all the little towns you drive through on winding, lonely highways — places where the water dried up or the railroad left or the mill closed and things just, as the poem goes, “fell apart.” Yeats was talking about the cataclysm of the Great War, but I think that for many places the apocalypse is more subtle and more drab. There are a lot of interesting stories to tell there.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I believe in outlines. I say “believe” because it is something like faith! Generally when I start I try to know roughly where I’m going, even if I don’t end up getting there. I find it hard to begin writing with an empty page.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

My favorite kind of story is the kind where world-curious, upbeat animal-folk learn that there are few problems one cannot solve through the twin powers of good-natured optimism and clever banter. A lot of my stories are ones where I count it as a success if my readers come away with a smile, a lifted mood, and knowing some obscure bit of trivia that they didn’t know before.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

Teobas Franklyn starts my story An Iron Road Running as a starry-eyed, irrepressible kid on his first day of his dream job working on a railroad. Over the course of the novel, the work becomes more trying and he finds himself well out of his depth, but by keeping his wits about him he matures into someone people look to for help, guidance, and solutions to difficult problems. Teo, who ends the story still excited and optimistic, but with his optimism guided by world-wisdom, is the kind of person I’d like to grow up and become.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

Robert Heinlein and Rudyard Kipling, for the knack they have at celebrating and lauding individuals with indomitable spirits. Other golden-age SF writers, too: Leiber and Asimov and Cordwainer Smith. I know they seem archaic and even naïve now but I feel like that sense of optimism and grand adventure needs to be recaptured. That we should look with wonder and excitement to every new horizon; that frontiers still await us, be they physical or technological or scientific or philosophical — and that, moreover, through ingenuity and dedication and willpower and intellect, such frontiers are our birthright. Furry is such a singularity of great writers that it’s hard to name specific ones in fandom, but pretty much every time I sit down at a keyboard I wish I could write like Huskyteer and Cinnamon, or that I had the same honed gift for ideas as Rechan and Kyell Gold. Those are really the furry authors I look up to and who influence me.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

It’s a bit older now, but I finally finished Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August on a long plane flight and it’s absolutely spellbinding. It describes the process by which Europe fell, with equal parts inevitability and stupidity, into the Great War. Her ability to distill the competing factions that conspired to destroy the continent is masterful! Even if you’re not historically inclined, it’s the kind of timeless book that still makes for great reading. And, quite probably, it’s still instructive — the way something that now seems inevitable was shocking and incomprehensible at the time is likely to have some parallels for future historians of our present day.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

Photography and cycling, particularly as the weather gets warmer and it’s more pleasant to be outside. In Berlin, the summer evenings last forever and there’s plenty of soft, golden light drenching every tree and building and park. It’s a great time to just be out in the world.

8. Advice for other writers?

Write now, worry later. I firmly believe this world is better with more stories in it. Tell them. My advice is that if you come to a fork in the road, and one path leads to putting down words on a page, take that one. Don’t worry if it’s been written before, or if your readers won’t like it, or if you’re doing something wrong — those are problems for Future You. And ignore anyone else trying to do your worrying for you. Every so often articles get passed around about the Things You Shouldn’t Do: the characters you shouldn’t write, the plot devices that are tired, the settings that are overdone, and so on. I say that’s also a problem for Future You: write now, worry later.

For some writers, writing comes easily. For others, and I’m one of them, writing is a constant, unending, and quixotic battle against all the forces arrayed against my keyboard. You can always edit out the things you don’t like later — but the words need to get written first. So when you read or hear or feel something that purports to be advice or guidance but actually keeps you from writing, recognize it for the traitor it is and ignore the impulse to listen. Write now, worry later.

9. Where can readers find your work?

SoFurry. I’ve been a resident there long enough to claim citizenship!

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

I love how creative it is, and — as a consequence — how its creativity seems to beget creativity. I tend to write for furries, and in online venues like SoFurry, which means I’m writing to, for, and with other writers. There’s a direct feedback loop that means that I know when my readers like a particular plotline or have ideas about how it should be developed — an intimate link between creators, co-creators and consumers that wasn’t really possible in the past and seems particularly strong here. I know in the past it was more common to be downbeat on furry writing, and that’s very unfortunate because the fandom has a wealth of tremendously talented individuals in it. It is simply not possible to look at the creative spark at the very core of furry and not come away inspired.

Check out Rob Baird’s member bio here!

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

I have a novel, Mist, forthcoming from Thurston Howl Publications. It’s not recently written, as I first wrote it a few years ago – back when I was in high school! But it’s a “recent” or more accurately a current project because I’m going to be working on it over the coming year as we prepare it for publication.

I never really knew what inspired Mist until I dug through an old journal and realized that before I started writing or even outlining the book I had a dream about five animals made of mist in this gray, veiled, mysterious place:  a wolf, a stag, a hare, a lynx, and a snake. Those animals ended up representing the five main characters of Mist, though the hare later morphed into a mongoose. The wonders of the subconscious mind!

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

It really depends on the project. With short stories, I tend to get an idea and then just run with it and see what happens. Sometimes I know exactly where I’m going and sometimes I don’t, and sometimes I think I do and then the story has its own plan. With novels, I like to have more of an outline and a sense of the overarching structure before I begin. But it’s still somewhat fluid, and I am often surprised.

Poems usually come in sporadic bursts, like desert monsoons, and get refined later.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

I like to write speculative fiction – stories that ask questions, pose “What if?” scenarios, take the reader on a journey to a place where strange and wondrous things can happen.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

Hmm. This is a hard one. They are all their own people/creatures, but they all have little pieces of me inside them I suppose.

I can relate to the dragon narrator of “The Monster’s Story”, published in A Menagerie of Heroes (the RainFurrest 2015 Charity Anthology). He has such a wealth of love in his heart and just wants to be generous and kind. In the end the world uses that against him, though, in a sense, his love helps him to transcend it.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

Growing up, I loved the Harry Potter series, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the Animorphs series, and The Last Unicorn. I also loved fiction and nonfiction about animals, including works by Jean Craighead George, Gary Paulsen, and Jack London. I think this amalgamation caused me to want to write stories involving magic and animals. A lot of my writing thus far has involved those two elements.

The Last Unicorn, The Lord of the Rings, and Animorphs also gave me an interest in stories with bittersweet, ambiguous endings. I don’t usually favor neatly tied-up happy endings. Such stories don’t haunt me. They don’t continue to live and breathe in my brain. And they aren’t consistent with reality.

Poetry-wise, Mary Oliver, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Stafford, and Naomi Shihab Nye are a few of my biggest influences.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It’s a surreal, beautiful, richly detailed fantasy love story.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I am a wildlife biologist, so I spend a lot of my time chasing animals around. I also like to draw and play musical instruments, neither well. I enjoy reading about anything from astronomy to comparative mythology. I love traveling and exploring and seeing the world.

And I pray, because I am continually astounded and humbled by the universe and I’m grateful to be one small part of it.

8. Advice for other writers?

Don’t give up. If you love to write, make time for that passion in your life. If you want to be published, don’t let rejection stop you. Listen with an open mind to suggestions, refine and improve your craft, and keep trying.

Most importantly, daydream and have fun.

9. Where can readers find your work?

My author website is in the works, but for now, you can find a few samples of my work through my page on Goodreads. Contact me there if you’re interested in reading more!

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

I am a relative newcomer to the furry fandom, so I have never been to any conventions, nor am I a member of any furry websites other than the FWG forum. But I would love to attend a convention someday and meet others who share my interest in anthropomorphic animal characters.

What I like so far about this fun, dynamic place is its vibrant creativity, its diversity, its inclusiveness and friendliness, and its wonderful ways of combining two of my favorite things – fantasy and animals.

Check out Amy Fontaine’s member bio here!

When you write a first draft, you shouldn’t be thinking about scene-level editing. There are times when you might think, “oh, I want to write this scene but I probably won’t use it,” but go ahead and write it. At the worst, it’s an exercise in writing. It might reveal something about your character that doesn’t come up elsewhere, but that you’ll know. At best, you might find a place for it in the story and it might add new depth.

But how do you know? You won’t know until you know what your story’s about, what the character journey is and what you want to convey to the reader. Then every scene in your story should advance character or plot (ideally both). In science fiction and fantasy (and furry stories sometimes) you can get away with a scene that is mostly worldbuilding, but it’s best to work the worldbuilding into plot or character advancement.

A great way to figure this out is to summarize each of your scenes in a sentence: “Lee discusses his future job prospects with his former boss.” Then figure out how each of the scenes connects to the others. Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park use that method, and they say that in every case, the word connecting your scenes should be either “therefore” or “but.” If you can only connect the scenes with “and then,” that means that the previous scene isn’t flowing into the next one, and you’re going to lose some of the story’s energy.

For example:

“Lee discusses his future job prospects with his former boss.”

THEREFORE

“Lee contacts some people but gets a lot of rejections.”

THEREFORE

“Lee goes to see his boyfriend to cheer himself up.”

BUT THEN

“Lee’s boyfriend is unsympathetic because he’s preoccupied with his own problems.”

Those scenes all flow nicely into each other and connect well. You can then look at the overall theme: is this story about Lee’s job or his relationship? If it’s more about the job, then maybe going back to his boyfriend and going down that road isn’t the right way to go; it’s putting too much weight on the boyfriend. At that point maybe you’d want Lee to talk to another co-worker instead, or maybe visit something else related to his job. Maybe you could have him discover that he has worth beyond his job, or find another way to do his job. Whatever your story’s about, every scene should play into that somehow.

So how do you decide whether the scene is important to the character or the plot? Well, every scene should start with your character wanting something, having a goal that’s important either to the plot or to the character development. At the end of the scene, the reader should know if they reached that goal or not. For example, in the above scenes, Lee wants to get a new job. So in the first scene, he gets some contacts from his former boss. In the second, he wants interviews, so he calls a bunch of people, but doesn’t get any interviews. In the third, he wants to feel better about himself, so he goes to look for external validation from his boyfriend. Now, you can look at the wants in those scenes and say, “Is this the way I want the story to go?” For example, if we want the story to be more about Lee’s relationship to his job rather than his boyfriend, we could say, “wanting validation from his boyfriend isn’t important to the story I’m telling right now.”

(It’s also possible to have multiple storylines going on, and so a scene might follow directly from one a few scenes ago. That’s okay as long as each scene has one of those causal relationships to a previous scene. Readers can keep multiple stories in their head, but cluttered stories with scenes that go nowhere make it harder to care about them.)

Ideally you want all your scenes to advance both the plot and the character journey. In the above example, you might decide that actually showing Lee getting a bunch of rejections isn’t necessary to the plot. Then you could skip directly from the conversation with his former boss to going to visit his boyfriend, and drop the information about the rejections into his conversation. “Well, my boss gave me three names and I’ve got three rejections. How was your day?” (for example).

Or you might use the rejections to show Lee’s shift in mood, where he starts the first one happy and upbeat and has gotten beaten down by the last one. This could explain why he’s more snappy than usual when he visits his boyfriend. Maybe one of the people he calls says something prejudiced about foxes that sets him on edge. You have to decide what is most important to the character and the story.

Editing isn’t an easy process, and often you’ll find yourself having to toss out scenes you like a lot. Post them on your site as a deleted scene and explain why you cut them, or just keep them for future reference on your drive. It’s important that they not remain in your story if they’re getting in the way of the story, though. I will say that in general you should err on the side of cutting out scenes, because you are already biased toward keeping all your precious words. Also, your beta readers (beta readers are very important) are much more likely to tell you that something is missing and needs to be added back in than that a scene is unnecessary and needs to be cut.

So examine each scene, ask what it does to advance your plot and character, and if the answer is “not much,” consider cutting the scene and delivering whatever information it provides within another scene. This might be very hard at first, but the more you do it, the more you’ll find your stories are engaging from beginning to end, packed only with scenes that make the reader want to go on to the next one.

An earlier version of this column appeared in Kyell’s April 2016 newsletter.

June’s Book of the Month is Forest Gods, the sequel to God of Clay by FWG member Ryan Campbell, and the second in his Fire Bearers trilogy.

Cover by Zhivago

Kwaee, god of the forest, has turned all his power toward the destruction of the human tribe that he accuses of serving the treacherous fire god Ogya. Seeking reasons for the ancient conflict, Clay and Doto embark on a dangerous journey far outside the forest in search of savanna god Sarmu.

Meanwhile, in the human village, the healer Cloud fights new and terrifying threats from the forest and tries to help her people survive, but at every turn, she must battle prince Laughing Dog, who seeks to turn their king down a path that could lead to the end of humanity.

Along both their journeys lie dangers they never expected—and secrets that may have been better left buried.

Forest Gods is available in print from the publisher, Sofawolf Press, and in print and Kindle ebook from Amazon.

Welcome to our newest member, Madison “Arara” Keller! If you’re interested in joining us, see this page to find out how.

Erin Quinn’s first novel Tailless has been released by Rabbit Valley.

Joel “Zarpaulus” Kreissman’s novel The Pride of Parahumans has been accepted by Thurston Howl Publications.

In short fiction news, several members have stories in Fred Patten’s upcoming anthology Gods With Fur, including Alice “Huskyteer” Dryden, Kyell Gold, Mary E. Lowd, Watts Martin, and Televassi. Rechan sold the flash fiction piece “Letter from the Front Lines” to Bards and Sages Quarterly.

Huskyteer won the Ursa Major for her short story “The Analogue Cat.”

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

The third volume of the charity anthology Wolf Warriors is seeking wolf-themed fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction through June 15, 2016.

Fred Patten’s next anthology for FurPlanet, The Dogs of War, is looking for original furry military-themed stories “preferably of 4,000 to 20,000 words.” The emphasis should be on military actions, not politics; Fred notes that despite the title, he’s looking for all kinds of anthropomorphic animals, not just dogs. Payment: ½¢ per word, on publication. Deadline: October 1, 2016. (Read the submission call.)

ROAR 8, FurPlanet’s annual general audience anthology, will again be edited by Mary E. Lowd. Next year’s theme is “Paradise.” It will be open for submissions from September 1, 2016 through February 1, 2017. (Read the submission call.)

Laura “Munchkin” Lewis’s charity poetry anthology, Civilized Beasts, is accepting submissions for a 2016 volume.

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

New FWG president, Watts Martin (“Chipotle”), took office on June 1. (Read Watts’s introductory post.) Everyone in the Guild offers thanks and well-wishes to outgoing two-term president Renee Carter Hall!

The FWG University is now open! Our next workshop, “Four Simple Ways to Strengthen Your Prose,” will open for registration on June 20. For more info on this and other upcoming workshops, see this thread.

Voting remains open through July 1 for this year’s Cóyotl Awards.

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here. (Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!)

Elsewhere on the Internet, we have a Goodreads group with a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that).

Remember, we’re always open for guest blog post submissions from FWG members—it’s a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for the details.

Have a creative and successful month! If you have news, suggestions, or other feedback to share, send an email to [email protected], or leave a comment below.

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

My most recent published work is Huntress, the story of a young anthro lioness’ journey to become one of her people’s elite female hunters. Some of the character names and deities were taken from an old notion I’d had many years before to write a Watership Down-style novel about regular lions, but the story of Huntress was inspired by an episode of the National Geographic Channel’s show Taboo. It focused on the practice of “breast ironing,” where young women have to either painfully flatten their breasts so they can stay “girls” and keep going to school, or let their bodies develop, officially becoming women, and then be forced into marriage. The conflict of that choice stayed with me, and a more extreme version of it became part of the book.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

The process can vary from project to project, but for longer works I usually make a few pages of notes brainstorming possible scenes, characters, elements, and so forth, which then turns into a list of key scenes. It’s a pretty flexible, organic type of outline, though, and things often get added, changed, or moved as I get into the writing. The other part of my process is that I try to work longhand for first drafts whenever I can, especially for short pieces; for a lot of different reasons, it feels better to me than composing with a keyboard.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

I’ve always felt most at home in fantasy, whereas science fiction is more a place I visit the suburbs of but don’t feel comfortable venturing into the heart of the city. I like adding a touch of humor where I can. And of course, I like writing anything with an animal or animal-like character involved, or I wouldn’t be here!

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

There’s a lot of me in Leya from Huntress — her longing, her drive, her perfectionism, and her questioning. I admit, though, sometimes I do feel like Dinkums from Real Dragons Don’t Wear Sweaters, wanting to be taken seriously as a fearsome creature of legend despite being pink, fuzzy, and cute. Whenever I feel like I should be writing some kind of gritty, edgy, epic trilogy that will win prestigious awards; whenever I feel like I’m just writing these silly, shallow little stories that will never really matter — yeah, that’s Dinkums.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

A lot of my influences aren’t technically (or primarily) authors, but when it comes to my furry fiction, it’s pretty easy to pick out the notable turning points on the timeline. I read Bambi around age 10 because I was curious how it compared to the movie — and found that in many ways I liked the book better. As I’ve read it again and again over the years, I’ve come to appreciate its reverence for the natural world and its adult sensibility that doesn’t resort to easy, sentimental answers. Later, books like Ratha’s Creature and Watership Down opened up the possibility of writing animal fantasy in a way that included culture and change (with or without humans being part of the mix). In late high school, I fell hard for the Redwall books, and though the formula eventually wore thin, that initial enchantment became a big influence on my first published novel, By Sword and Star (I wrote a whole blog post about that here).

Later on, around the time that I was getting into the furry fandom, I read S. Andrew Swann’s Forests of the Night and started to see possible ways to write the bipedal type of “furry” fiction, in addition to the more feral style of animal fantasy that I was already familiar with. Without question, my biggest influence among fandom works was a short story I discovered online, “Wings” by Todd G. Sutherland. That inspired my own story “Dog Days,” which then became my first story published within the fandom.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

That would be Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy, which is probably the best contemporary YA book I’ve read since Laurie Halse Anderson’s Catalyst. Willowdean’s voice, emotions, and struggles ring true on every page, and for me there were a lot of smiles (and cringes) of recognition. It’s a rare book that truly can make me tear up at one scene and laugh out loud at another, but Dumplin’ managed both.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I’m an insatiable reader, rarely going more than a few minutes between books, so if I’m not writing, I’m probably reading. Lately I’m also enjoying adult coloring books as a way to relax using art, without the pressure I put on myself if I’m trying to draw or paint something original.

8. Advice for other writers?

The tl;dr version is: Keep writing, keep reading, keep learning. Do those three things and it’s impossible not to improve. The learning can be via critiques, classes and workshops, how-to books, whatever suits your situation best.

Which brings me to the other big one for me: When it comes to process, there’s no right or wrong way. You don’t have to write some certain number of words a day (or even write every day) to be a “real” writer, and you don’t have to follow someone else’s path to success (in fact, you probably can’t anyway). We’re all different. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling bad because you’re not doing what Pompous Successful Writer says you should be doing. Find what works for you.

9. Where can readers find your work?

The hub for everything is my website, http://www.reneecarterhall.com, and the best way to keep up with what I’m doing is to sign up for my mailing list. I’m also on Twitter as @RCarterHall (warning: I retweet a lot of cat pics), and I have galleries on FA and Weasyl as Poetigress.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

It’s become something of a cliché answer for this question, but looking at the fandom as a whole, the level of creativity and enthusiasm is pretty amazing, especially considering how much of it is focused on creating original content and not just replicating or re-purposing something from a media source.

On a personal level, I love that there’s a place where I can share a serious story starring an animal character without worrying that it’s going to be automatically dismissed as weird or as something silly for children. As much as I love publishing anthropomorphic fiction outside the fandom, and as much as I want to see its audience grow beyond the boundaries of furry, it’s still reassuring to know that the fandom’s supportive space and audience are open to me as a creator.

Check out Renee Carter Hall’s member bio here!

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

I think I’ve become known as a person interested in nonfiction writing just as much as fiction in the furry fandom. I publish things whenever I can at [adjective][species] (a team I’ve had so much pleasure working with), and I have a piece coming up about analyzing some of the sociological aspects of post-con depression.

But my biggest project, which I have been working on for well over a year now, is my novel The Bad in the Briar, which is about a fox with psychic powers who lives in an insular mountain community with a family who doesn’t have electricity. It’s a coming of age story with a splash of horror and adult content. I wanted to write a fantasy that felt very human and very earnest despite taking on an epic fantasy model. This might be a story about somebody from your home town who dropped off of the face of the earth as opposed to a crown prince discovering their heritage.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

The best metaphor I have for my process is something akin to clay relief sculpting. You have a planning stage where you draw out a rough idea of what you want your sculpture to look like. You add large chunks of clay to the piece, which look ugly and gormless as first, but once the big chunk is on the slate, you go through a subtractive process to redefine elements of your sculpture. You carve in small details and remove a lot of the raw product to make a beautiful piece, and then you add more rough shapes into the artwork to slowly shape it, repeating your process.

So for writing, I’ll do a very non-detailed skeleton outline. It will be simple and sparse but it will have a clear beginning, middle and end. I’ll leave myself a lot of wiggle room for the in-betweens to grow organically, but knowing what is going to happen with big decisions in the plot helps me ahead of time. It also allows me to work on something like the end before I write the beginning, or vice versa. Sometimes your finished product is going to veer away from your original plan, but that’s the nature of art, and sometimes it works out for the better.

Keeping a plan very simple is helpful for me, because I know that as you write and continue to add prose, you’ll introduce complications of your own, and the story will develop like a weed that’s getting out of control. You don’t have to add more complications to the planning stage.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

A lot of the pieces I tend to work on draw inspiration from living around poverty for most of my life. I like thinking about the places in America (and not just America) that often don’t get their stories told. Really bizarre, niche things like the inexplicable phenomenon that is roadside dinosaurs, or towns in the deep South that still exist to this day which only have one federal building in their town–that building being the post office.

We have places in America like the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina which is this grand, majestic castle showing off the wealth and opulence of the Vanderbilts that exists within driving distance of some of the most ridiculous tourist traps you’ve ever seen; things like gemstone mines with egregious pictures of cartoon prospectors where tiny children pan for uncut gems and go wild about owning a “real-life” emerald. That kind of juxtaposition is amazing to me.

I also feel like for a community that spends so much of its time talking to long distance friends over the internet, surprisingly few stories incorporate aspects of online life. Little things like sending a text or showing off a character’s typing habits, or one person’s tendency to make typos versus another person. I try to incorporate how social dynamics have evolved a bit when it comes to things like instant messengers, texts and twitter.

Something that’s interesting to me is also how I feel like I’ve become this inadvertent liaison between writers who write and love erotica and writers who strictly write for a general audience. I write both of these things, and I care a heck of a lot about both. Furry is an interesting space that I think desperately needs stuff like smutty gay fiction as well as something you may read and say “oh hey, I can easily see this getting The John Newbery Medal.” All I can say is that art comes in many different forms, and I have high standards for all of it, no matter the content or the purpose of the writing.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

I think a lot of things that have irked me about adventure or fantasy novels is that the main character is stressed as an “every man.” They’re supposed to be our windows into fantastic worlds and they aren’t supposed to have the strongest personalities because it’s believed that these types of characters can be easier to relate to. That’s always bothered me, so I wanted to spend extra time on making sure I really liked the protagonist of The Bad in the Briar, Keene. He’s this quiet, observant guy with decent intentions. He hasn’t been dealt the best cards in life, but he copes with them in the best ways that he can, and I try to make those coping mechanisms fun.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

On one hand, memoirs and fiction that read like memoirs. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is about this girl who lives with her weirdo family in this castle that’s falling apart and how they deal with the eccentricities of their home and one another. Into the Wild, which is a nonfiction story written by John Krakaur, really helped me think about how to write an adventure story about a real person who breathed and died in the unforgiving Alaskan wilds.

On the fiction side of things, I’m a huge fan of alternate history. The Man in the High Castle and Kindred come to mind immediately. Those are both examples of works with highly speculative concepts such as time travel and alternate dimensions but focus so much on the characters and a grounded society that you can sometimes forget you’re reading a fantasy.

Rikoshi’s work has given me a great deal of inspiration, too, and I think he was a writer that pushed me to think of erotica as an art that deserves respect and patience. I think he was the first one who inspired me to attempt to carve out a space for erotica in furry, and say “hey, there are a lot of smart things going on in the best of this genre and they deserve to be talked about.”

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

I read too many books that I love, but God of Clay by Ryan Campbell and Song of the Summer King by Jess E. Owen are two very different and very accomplished examples of a great read.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I’m an avid baker. I make my own breads and cakes and spend more than a few nights enjoying shows like the Great British Bake-off and Cutthroat Kitchen. Amateur gardening, video games and table top games have their place in my de-stressing rituals, too.  I also like to hike and explore my town, looking for strange things that might give me a little bit of writing inspiration.

8. Advice for other writers?

Write what you love. There’s always going to be an audience for everything. Don’t get bummed out when somebody doesn’t like a thing that you write, because what makes readers and the world of writing great is just how diverse everybody’s tastes are. You can write a masterpiece and somebody will be guaranteed to still hate it (which is a real issues even for big deal authors and New York Times bestsellers). Just always be mindful that your writing can always improve, and for all serious writers, improving is a life-long journey that does not end. Well, at least not until that pesky mortality comes along.

9. Where can readers find your work?

I’m all over the place. You can find two of my adult stories in the anthologies Will of the Alpha 2 and Dungeon Grind. I’ve published poetry in the Weasel Press anthology Civilized Beasts and the online journal [adjective][species], where I also publish essays and nonfiction pieces.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

My favorite thing about the furry fandom is that I can tweet a long, rambly stream of thought about why I think a weasel makes sense for me as a representative species and strangers will look at it and go “hey, that makes sense,” which is equally cool and also bananas.

Check out George Squares’ member bio here!

May’s Book of the Month, Fellowship of the Ringtails, is by member Angela “LemurKat” Oliver.

The kingdom of Madigaska is in turmoil. The King has died under suspicious circumstances and now his Queen has usurped the throne. The only remnant of the last ruler is an illegitimate orphan. Born many miles away, and raised by a peaceable fishing tribe, she knows little of her heritage, her destiny. But with the fierce Hunter, Noir, on her trail, what hope does she have?

Set in an alternate world Madagascar, where the dominant life forms are lemurs with a level of technology equal to primitive tribes, “Lemurs: A Saga” contains true elements of Malagasy history and culture, intermingled with a heavy dose of pure fantasy. It is, indeed, epic fantasy, with lemurs.

Available from Amazon in paperback and ebook.

Welcome to our newest members Marshall L. Moseley, Gre7g Luterman, Thomas “Faux” Steele, Televassi, and Angela “LemurKat” Oliver!

In short fiction news, Mary E. Lowd’s flash fiction “Take Them To The Happiness Zoo” appeared in Theme of Absence last month, and Rechan’s story “The Monster Next Door” can be found in Creepy Campfire Quarterly #2.

In poetry news, the Second [adjective][species] Poetry Collection is now live, including poems from several FWG members, and [a][s] also featured a selection of animal-themed poems by the collection’s editor, Renee Carter Hall (day 1, day 2, and day 3).

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Upcoming deadlines: Issue 3 of A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature is open until May 15.

New markets: The third volume of the charity anthology Wolf Warriors is seeking wolf-themed fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction (deadline June 15), and the second volume of the poetry anthology Civilized Beasts is open for submissions from now until October 1 (see this thread for guidelines and updates).

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

Members, beginning on May 16, we’ll be voting on this proposal to change the FWG by-laws by adding two new officer positions. Watch your inbox for the ballot!

The FWG University is now open! Our first workshop, the FWG Poetry Workshop and Primer, begins tomorrow, May 2. It’s being held entirely in the forums, and all poets are welcome to join in.

Voting is now open through July 1 for this year’s Cóyotl Awards.

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here. (Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!)

Elsewhere on the Internet, we have a Goodreads group with a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that).

Remember, we’re always open for guest blog post submissions from FWG members — it’s a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for the details.

Have a creative and successful month! If you have news, suggestions, or other feedback to share, send an email to [email protected] or leave a comment below.

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

My most recent project is what I have come to call ASfHA. (Which stands for: Anthropomorphic Science Fiction Horror Anthology, which is quite a mouthful as you can see.) It’s largely inspired by a number of science fiction horror films I watched while growing up. Chief among these being Alien, Aliens, and Event Horizon. There is something to be said for the terrors that the future will bring to humans as we take each step forwards, and that intrigues me.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I’m a total pantser. Maybe it had to do with all the essays I had to write in University, but my stories only seem to flow when I am keyboard composing. I’ve tried doing the whole outline thing, and when it worked it worked beautifully, but ultimately I work better on the fly. The characters take on a life of their own and the story they tell is theirs. I’m just there to put it into words.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

The members of my local writer group would say ‘Female Betrayal’.

Really though, I enjoy writing stories with complex characters and the interactions between them. Take my Raven and Holly stories (featured in Taboo and Will of the Alpha 2 & 3, all published by FurPlanet). I’m not a huge fan of setting stories in our current timeline, yet here are a couple I can’t seem to get enough writing about. Sure, the stories are erotic, but the more you look into Raven and Holly’s lives, the more you realize just how complex it is and how much juggling it takes to maintain their polyamorous relationship. It’s something I enjoy exploring and more importantly, want to keep exploring.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

Kaden Stockheimer from Wild Night in Trick or Treat, published by Rabbit Valley.

I spent my twenties as a goth and even now still dip into the culture every so often since hanging up my lucky PVC pants. Kaden represents a lot of my own attitudes from that time in my life, and his experiences with his friends and his girlfriend share a lot of echoes with my own life. He’s not a self inserted character by a long shot, but is the closest I have ever come to putting a part of me into a character.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

Lovecraft is easily my primary influence. Yes, he was a terribly xenophobe and racist, but he wrote weird fiction that changed the face of horror and influenced many of today’s contemporary horror masters. The scope of his horrors, the inclusion of multi-generational sin, and the idea that mankind is insignificant and unimportance in the scope of the universe are themes that still resonate today and are interesting to explore while writing.

C.L.Werner is another one. Despite writing primarily in the preexisting Warhammer setting, Werner manages to bring his own flavour and personal preferences to his writing. His fantasy stories always seem to have a touch of Lovecraft to them without smacking of it, and that’s always a win for me.

Lastly, Andrzej Sapkowski has recently become a large influence to me. His fantasy novels are easily the most realistic ones I have read when it comes to his characters and their interactions. Much like real life, his characters wear different masks for different situations or people, and often the dueling dialogues between them are as engaging as his fight scenes.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror, edited by Tim Lieder and published by Dybbuk Press. The concept captured my attention due to my degree in religious studies and my love of horror anthologies. The stories within were amazing and extremely creative. Not only did the writers who submitted capture various themes found within the Bible, but did it in such ways as to make your skin crawl and breath quicken over a variety of timelines.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I work with Ocean, Roland and Yannarra on the writing podcast Fangs and Fonts, which has been going for over two years now. I also read a lot, go for hikes, tend to my two feline overlords and fursuit for charities when time permits.

8. Advice for other writers?

When your inner voice says you can’t write, ignore it.

Keep writing, never stop, and continue to practice your craft. You will always continue to improve as long as you write. No matter how bad a rejection may sting or linger in your mind, always remember that you can either run from it, or learn from it. And trust me, learning from it is always the better option. Less repetition of painful lessons that way.

9. Where can readers find your work?

Primarily my works can be found through FurPlanet while my non-furry works can be found on Amazon. For a full list of what I have done, readers can check out my Goodreads page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5759304.Tarl_Voice_Hoch

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

It’s where I met my wife.

Also, the sheer creative force in the fandom is amazing to watch. We have people from every walk of the creative arts who are constantly creating, be it stories, artwork, dance routines, music, you name it, furries create it. We’ve come a long way from when I first got into the fandom, and that was only 20 years ago. I am excited to see where this all goes, what works we create and how we will continue to change mainstream culture. It’s an exciting time for the fandom and I love it.

Check out Tarl “Voice” Hoch’s member bio here!

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

My most recent published pieces as a short story in FANG.  Exploring themes of betrayal and especially betrayal of friends or loved ones, the action piece followed an agent for a covert intelligence agency that gets tricked into romance and betrayed by the secret object of his affections.  I was really thrilled to explore some of the aspects of betrayal in love.  While in a limited scope because of the length limits and requirements of the piece, I was most excited about digging in the surface of the concept of love by trickery and if it really can ever be a one-sided exercise.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I am definitely more of a pantser when I write.  While I like to have an idea in my head when it comes to the direction the story will go, I often enjoy the organic joy of discovering the twists and turns with my characters.  I feel this adds a sense of life and energy to the story that the characters are taking the reader on as well.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

I enjoy writing urban paranormal/fantasy, romance and science fiction.  Often i find the most compelling stories include a mix of these genres.  As for the types of stories, I like stories with a dark side, betrayal, loss and elements of hopelessness go a long way to craft a story that the characters can overcome… or fall to, depending on the overall mood of the tale.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

While there is not a specific character in my work that I relate to whole cloth, I tend to relate more to the characters that express a strong sense of self and often find themselves the underdog of my stories.  I find that characters that start the story strong have the furthest to fall and the most compelling build back up again which I enjoy.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

I take influence from a lot of authors both furry and non.  In the mainstream, Orson Scott Card, Jim Butcher, David Eddings, Ursula K. Le Guin, Alan Dean Foster and Anne McCaffrey are my tops!  Within the fandom I often find inspiration in the writings of Kyell Gold, Kevin Frane and Ryan Campbell.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

A book by Alan Dean Foster called Quozl about a lapine-like race of aliens that come to earth on a generation ship to colonize it only to find that humans are already there!  The story is compelling, following a few generations of the colonists and looking into their unique culture shaped by their ultra-violent past.  A very interesting read!

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

Truth be told, I’m a geek.  Most of my free time is taken up with tabletop board games and RPGs, Live Action Role Playing (and the crafting and costume work that goes with it), computer games, movies and socializing with friends!

8. Advice for other writers?

So cliche, but write!  In the end it doesn’t matter what, but write often and keep everything you write, even if you hide it in a shoe box and pull it out to marvel at your improvement, just do it!  Computer, pen and paper, anything, just write!

9. Where can readers find your work?

I post stories on SoFurry under Sorinkat, or you can check out some of my published works in the RainFurrest charity anthologies, FANG 7 and a few scattered convention books.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

I love the general sense of acceptance that the fandom has.  It’s so refreshing to be part of a group of people that are willing to let people be who they are and are generally friendly about it!

Check out Sorin Kat’s member bio here!

April’s Book of the Month is another double feature, this time showcasing furry fiction by two of the fandom’s up-and-coming authors.

First, The Latte Segment by Zoe Landon:

“Sarah Madsen is a modern young rabbit with a cozy urban life. A yuppie, perhaps, though she’d disagree with the label. After all, yuppies don’t hang with eccentric artists in beat-down studios, much less date them. And they don’t get pushed out of their apartment by profit-hunting developers, forced to pick between an impossible market and an unsustainable rent.

As she hunts for a new place to live, she learns how her comfortable lifestyle is seen by those around her. Some are sympathetic and kind, some cold and indifferent, some jealous and hostile. None can relieve her frustration from knowing that her easy life is slowly slipping out of her control. She’ll take control anywhere she can find it, but not everyone appreciates her attempts to help. Not even herself.

A story of class and success in the millennial age, The Latte Segment explores how well we can trust others, and ourselves, to do the right things in our lives — or, to do anything about them at all.”

Available in ebook and paperback from Amazon.

Next up is In Honor’s Shadow by Skye Lansing:

“What use is honor without victory?

The Wolf Clan stands divided amid a bitter civil war. For years the noble Hayashi Family has struggled to wrest control of the clan from their rivals, the Hitomi, but one disastrous battle has exhausted their power. Now every warrior within Hayashi territory must decide what role they shall play in the upcoming conflict.

Shiro, the magistrate of an unimportant village, is tasked with a dangerous mission to stop the Hitomi Family’s army. Lacking supplies, troops, and support, he knows any direct confrontation is doomed to failure. Only through guile does he stand a chance against the forces arrayed before him.

Meanwhile, Hayashi Seiko seeks to throw off the oppressive mantle of courtly life by joining her brother in the field as a proper onna-bugeisha. She leapt at the chance to prove her worth as a soldier upon hearing that the war had turned against her family, but can she really escape the politics of a society that reveres duty and honor?”

Ebook available from Amazon and all other major retailers; you can find all the ordering links at the author’s website.

Welcome to our newest members Shaun “Gnarl” McGrath, Arian Mabe, Jeeves the Roo, Eric M. Witchey, and KC Alpinus!

It’s awards season, so first of all, congratulations to all our members whose work was nominated in the Ursa Major Awards and the Cóyotl Awards!

In book news, Kyell Gold has released Black Angel, Over Time, and the collection Twelve Sides. In short fiction news, Mary E. Lowd’s “High School Dogs” (a prequel to her novella In a Dog’s World) is now online at Deep Sky Anchor, and issue 2 of A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature is now available, featuring stories and book reviews from several FWG members.

In crowdfunding news, there are 21 days left in Jess E. Owen’s Kickstarter for By the Silver Wind, Book IV of the Summer King Chronicles.

If you’re into gaming/RPGs, check out Paul Kidd’s A Fistful of Quidloos and Heroes of Morhost, and if film/comic reviews are your thing, Dronon has published several recently at Flayrah. Like poetry too? Check out Weasel’s poem “Midnight’s Starving” in Yellow Chair Review.

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Upcoming deadlines: The anthology Gods With Fur closes May 1, and issue 3 of A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature is open until May 15. For conbook deadlines, we have five conbook listings with deadlines ranging from April 15 to May 1; check out all the details at our conbook page.

New markets: Poets, get your work in before April 22 for the second [adjective][species] poetry collection. Full guidelines here. For short stories, we have a new listing for The Society Pages, an anthology seeking stories exploring “civilized furry society.” The deadline is June 1, but you must submit a query before sending your story; see their guidelines for full information.

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

Voting is now open for this year’s Cóyotl Awards! Voting ends July 1.

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here. (Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!)

Elsewhere on the Internet, we have a Goodreads group with a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that). We also have a Telegram group, and you can find more info on that and a link in this thread.

Remember, we’re always open for guest blog post submissions from FWG members — it’s a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for the details.

Have a creative and successful month! If you have news, suggestions, or other feedback to share, send an email to [email protected] or leave a comment below.

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

My most recent book is my novella, Koa of the Drowned Kingdom, published through FurPlanet. It’s about a young fruit bat with torn wings who lives with a family of otters and dreams of rejoining the flighted world of the bats he left behind. The original idea for the book, like most of my books, came from a song on the radio. I don’t remember what it was anymore–something about an upside-down world, I think. That set off the fireworks in my head and I started imagining who would live there (bats, obviously), and what that world would be like. That night I couldn’t go to sleep. The story kept twisting and building itself in my head. By the time I finally dropped off, I’d composed nearly the entire thing, including every major plot point and all the major characters. From there it was just an issue of writing it down. I really tried to focus on a tight, well-edited plot, in which every piece is necessary at least twice. Pull one thread and it should fall apart from both ends. I find writing those kinds of plots very satisfying.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

It’s funny–I used to be a pantser, but I’ve found lately that that doesn’t work out well when I’m trying to get motivated to write. I have to know before I sit down what I’m going to be working on for the day, and it also helps if I have big major plot events that I’m looking forward to writing–that I’m writing toward. And now that I’m writing bigger, more complicated novels, I pretty much have to have an outline. That’s not to say that ideas aren’t occurring to me all the time during the process, or that I don’t change things or add things as I go! The outline gets modified a lot. The characters speak to me and require me to motivate them in different ways before they’ll agree to move through the obstacle course I’ve set up for them. But I have to know: if I change this plot element, how does that impact the story later? How will this compromise someone’s character arc? And the stories tend to be just a bit too big for me to do that well without an outline.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

Fantasy all the way. I love working with magic because to me it’s the closest to writing from pure imagination. Anything you can think of you can get away with, as long as you set limitations around it, rules, and then work within those rules consistently. It’d be fun to write scifi, but I kind of feel like I’m not smart enough. To write scifi you have to know how the whole world works, and I’m more an inner mind kind of guy. I’d rather make stuff up than take it apart to see how it works.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

To some degree I identify with all my characters. If we’re talking about The Fire Bearers, then I identify with Clay’s sense of wonder and also his self-doubt. I can be defensive and officious like Doto at times as well. And maybe most of all, I identify with Laughing Dog and his independence, his tendency toward selfishness, and his rejection of his people’s beliefs.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

Okay, I love love LOVE Robin Hobb and snap up everything she’s written. I love the way she writes characters who push back against their destinies and against the identities the world tries to foist on them. I resonate strongly with the way her characters hurt themselves because they feel like they have to. I’m a huge fan of Terry Pratchett as well. I love the way he blended wisdom and humor, the way he found love and compassion for people in their foibles, in their weaknesses. I think he’s one of the greatest humanist writers I’ve ever read. Going farther back, Ray Bradbury and Tolkien were my biggest influences in my youth. They took me to faraway places when, frankly, I kind of needed to leave the place I grew up.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

Probably Kindred, by Octavia Butler. Think of Outlander meets 12 Years a Slave. It’s a great look into how easily people can be seduced into accepting injustice, and how larger cultural narratives are responsible for shaping villains and victims, and how inescapable that can be. But if you’re asking me for recommendations, boy do I have some. Check out:

• Nexus, by Ramez Naam — a Buddhist cyberpunk posthuman action thriller. (Really!) It’s great, imaginative scifi, and the science in it is something we legitimately could be dealing with in the next 30 years. Plus it’s plain fun.
• The Lives of Tao — This is a super fun book by Wesley Chu, who just won the Campbell award last year. It’s about an everyday schlub who gets a millennia-old alien accidentally implanted into his head and learns how to be a badass secret agent serving in a war between two rival factions of the alien species
• The Cloud Roads, by Martha Wells — I dig this one because it’s about a member of a shapeshifting dragonlike guy meeting the rest of his species for the first time in his life and having to decide whether he’s going to be alone forever or get dragged into their conflict with these nasty monsters that they were born to fight. The world has no “humans” per se, but none of the traditional fantasy races either. I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of this series.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I love video games, and I’m heavy into indie adventures. I’m also a weightlifter, I play the piano when I need to relax, watch movies and tv with my husband, and I’m getting back into backpacking and camping again. It’s my dream to camp in Patagonia someday.

8. Advice for other writers?

Read what you love and write what you love. And just keep doing it. Most people fail because they’ve bought into this myth that you either have talent or you don’t, and if you don’t get “discovered” after the first few novels or short stories you write, then you don’t have “it.” But it takes a long, long time to get good at writing, and it takes humility to work to get better. Beyond that, writing is so deeply personal. The Internet is full of writing advice that is going to work for some people and not for others. There are a thousand different ways to be an awesome writer. You just have to find yours.

9. Where can readers find your work?

Kind of all over. Most of my books should (at some point) be available on amazon.com, but my publishers would like people to grab stuff off of furplanet.com and sofawolf.com. You could also visit their tables at your local convention.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

I love that we are probably the most creative fandom out there. We don’t have a show or a book series that we are all fans of like My Little Pony or Star Trek or anime fans. We’re fans of the stuff we create. And we make awesome stuff. The fandom has great writers and great artists and great suitmakers and great musicians — there’s so much art, legitimate art, in the stuff we do. And one of the things that does for us is that it makes us super supportive and welcoming toward each other. Of course you have your bad eggs, but every fandom has those. I think furries get down on themselves so hard, and I wish they wouldn’t. We’re an amazing bunch, and we need to focus on those things that make us a strong community. We see our own problems up close because we’re right next to them, but we should see our strengths, too: our creativity and supportiveness. That’s something to be proud of.

Check out Ryan “Not Tube” Campbell’s member bio here!

A reminder to FWG members (writers and associates) that there’s just a week left to submit your nominations for the 2015 Cóyotl Awards.

The nomination form can be found at:

http://coyotlawards.org/nominate/

If you need a refresher on works published in 2015, see the 2015 Recommended Reading thread in the forums.

Nominations for the 2015 awards are open through Thursday, March 31.

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

That would be Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, which was released by Tor Books on December 29th. The elevator pitch for the book was “Dune meets The Sixth Sense, with Elephants.” It’s a story about prophecy, intolerance, loyalty, conspiracy, and friendship. I invented some new subatomic particles for the book, which I combined with theory of how memory works, to create a galaxy in which a rare drug makes it possible to speak with the dead. All of the characters are anthropomorphic — uplifted animals to use the SF term, or as I prefer to call them “raised mammals.”

The origins of the book go back almost 30 years, to when I was a professor at New College in Florida, and legendary furry author and editor Watts Martin was the roommate of one of my students. Watts invited me to participate in an RPG based on Steve Gallacci’s Erma Felna: EDF, and despite the preeminence of felines in the story, I got it into my head that I wanted to RP an elephant character and started riffing on what their world was like. We never did play that game, but I began writing a novel and Watts even published the first two chapters in the pages of Mythagoras.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

Like a lot of authors I started out as a pantser, but nowadays I’m a born-again outliner. Back in 2010 I participated in Walter Jon Williams’s master class, the Taos Toolbox. Walter teaches a technique called “novel breaking” in which you basically tear a book apart and rebuild it, scene by scene. When you’re done, you not only know how each scene advances the plot, informs characterization, serves the story (or possibly combinations of two of these, or even all three), but you can see how the scenes interconnect and support one another and serve the narrative engine driving the novel. I like to think of it as creating the completely articulated skeleton of a novel. Everything is there, and it all hangs together, and all you have left to do is add the flesh (words) to it.

When I have a completed set of novel “bones” like this, I can sit down and pick up any scene and I know exactly what’s going to happen there, who’s going to do it, and what it’s going to tell me. It’s a very nicely defined task. How I choose to arrange the words to make all of that happen is the fun part!

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

One that teaches me how to do something I didn’t know how to do.

This may mean I’m stretching my range by trying something new — like writing in a subgenre I’ve never tried before — or perhaps pushing myself to get better at an area where I’m weak — like taking on the task of creating more complex plot and pacing.

I don’t think you ever finish learning how to be a writer. I’m always striving to be a little bit better. Some stories allow me to grow more than others, but when I can see clear improvement in my own style and process, that’s incredibly satisfying to me.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

The main protagonist of Barsk is a Lox, an uplifted African elephant (Loxodonta africana) named Jorl. He’s an academic, an historian who really just wants to stay home and do his research and write books and articles. He doesn’t get to.

There’s a long tradition of reluctant heroes who really have no interest in going off and having adventures or shaping the future or defeating evil. They enjoy their routines and they don’t want to be bothered and don’t tend to think of themselves as possessing the kind of agency necessary to do things.

There’s an awful lot of me in Jorl (and likely vice versa).

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

My earliest influences were authors like Burroughs and Heinlein and Le Guin and Zelazny. They’re among the first authors I discovered and devoured. Nowadays I look elsewhere for influence and inspiration. Writers like China Mieville, and Daniel Abraham, and Karl Schroeder. They dazzle me with their abilities to tell stories, to present rich and compelling ideas, to engage the reader’s interest and emotions.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

That would probably be Charles E. Gannon’s Raising Caine, which is the third book in an ongoing series. The first two were very enjoyable (and both received Nebula Award nominations), but in this third one we’re starting to see all the pieces coming together and it’s deliciously compelling. I know Chuck, and every time I run into him at a convention I demand to know where he is with book four; I’m hungry to learn what happens next! You’d think that as a friend he’d hook me up as a beta-reader or something.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

Does anyone ever answer this question without laughing? Free time? Seriously?

Writing and reading are both pretty sedentary activities. For reasons of health, I’m trying to find ways to move more, and in the past year that’s taken the form of geo-caching. Sometimes this has me wandering around in urban settings and sometimes along nature trails or out in the country. It gets me hiking and exposes me to sunshine, and  fresh air (and last summer, a brutal case of poison ivy) all while searching for tiny containers with random bits of silly swag. It’s fun and good for me, and often while I’m tromping around I’ll get ideas for new fiction or work through particular scenes that I’ve been writing. I highly recommend geo-caching for authors.

8. Advice for other writers?

Think in different time frames. You plan differently when writing a short story than when writing a novel, and you need to apply that same process to planning a career. We all want immediate satisfaction, but it’s important to have long term and far ranging goals.

When you know you’re going to be in this profession for the duration, it changes the way you look at the daily pieces.

9. Where can readers find your work?

In a perfect world, you’ll all rush out and pick up a copy of Barsk at your local bookstore. Here’s a quick Amazon link for your use: http://j.mp/BARSK-HCamz

Both of the Amazing Conroy novels are out of print, but are still available in ebook form. Quite a few of the stories from that universe are being offered for free under a Creative Commons license at Moozvine.com, which is a new publishing option that’s part CC license and part crowdfunding; a very fresh idea and one that I was happy to get in on the ground floor of, I hope you’ll check it out.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

Unfortunately, I haven’t been exposed to much of it, but I’ll be changing that in the coming months. It’s going to be tricky because my schedule for this year is jammed, but I’m trying to squeeze in trips to a couple furry conventions. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about furry fans, and it’s past time for me to experience them directly. I just hope they like elephants.

Check out Lawrence M. Schoen’s member bio here!

For March, our Book of the Month feature spotlights two books devoted to fantastic felines. The first, Cats and More Cats, is the latest anthology from editor Fred Patten and features authors from the fandom and beyond:

The not-so-humble feline has fascinated mankind for generations. From the noble jungle hunter, to the witch’s familiar, to the stray on the back porch meowing to be let in, cats have snuck into our hearts and dreams for as long as mankind has made homes. They have become our companions, and we tell stories about their secret lives and the strange magic they might possess.

This is a collection of those stories, gathering some of the best fantasy and science fiction stories featuring our feline friends, from authors like Clare Bell, Mary E. Lowd, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Bryan Derksen, Lawrence Watt-Evans, James M. Ward, and Renee Carter Hall. These fourteen stories will give you a glimpse into the world of cats, and leave you wanting more.

Trouble by P. M. Griffin
Bomber and the Bismarck by Clare Bell
… But a Glove by John E. Johnston III
Born Again by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Masters and Students by Bryan Derksen
Trixie by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Destiny by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Three-Inch Trouble by Andre Norton
Defender of the Small by Jody Lynn Nye
The Luck of the Dauntless by James M. Ward
After Tony’s Fall by Jean Rabe
Magtwilla and the Mouse by Mary E. Lowd
A Spoiled Rotten Cat Lives Here by Dusty Rainbolt
The Emerald Mage by Renee Carter Hall
Furry Fandom and Cats by Fred Patten
A Bibliography for Bast by Fred Patten

Parental rating G. Available from FurPlanet.

The second book, The Necromouser and Other Magical Cats, features a variety of cat-themed stories from Mary E. Lowd, including four that appear for the first time in this collection:

An angry cat who discovers the techno-mystical ability to raise mice from the dead…

A starving kitten who discovers a secret hidden in the San Francisco bay…

A witch’s cat, a scientist’s cat, and a cat who recognizes no owner…

In this collection, follow the adventures of the beloved tabby cat Shreddy as he faces off with zombies, ghosts, gryphons, foolhardy dogs, and all sorts of household appliances.

Then meet a series of cats whose stories will take you from heartbreak to joy, showing the magic in our own world through the reflection of a cat’s eyes.

Necromouser contains four all new stories and five Ursa Major nominated stories, including “Shreddy and the Carnivorous Plant.”

Contains the following stories by Mary Lowd:

The Necromouser
Shreddy and the Zomb-dogs
Shreddy and the Silver Egg
Shreddy and the Christmas Ghost
Shreddy and the Dancing Dragon
Shreddy and the Carnivorous Plant
Songs of Fish and Flowers
Katelynn the Mythic Mouser
The Wharf Cat’s Mermaid
Magtwilla and the Mouse
Cold Tail and the Eyes
All the Cats of the Rainbow
In a Cat’s Eyes

Parental rating G. Available in print from FurPlanet and as an ebook from Bad Dog Books.

(The editor of this blog wishes to call attention to the fact that she did not use a single cat-related pun in this post. You’re welcome.)

Welcome to our newest members Skunkbomb and Jeremiah T. Foxx!

Congratulations to Lawrence M. Schoen on his Nebula nomination for Best Novel for Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard!

The anthology Cats and More Cats, edited by Fred Patten and featuring stories from members Clare Bell, Mary E. Lowd, and Renee Carter Hall (among other authors), is now available from FurPlanet.

In webserial news, Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort has completed From Winter’s Ashes, and Frances Pauli continues with her two anthro-themed webserials The Earth Tigers and Much Ado About Bluebottles.

Renee Carter Hall has just launched her new blog Three From Waynesboro, about her experiences as one of the 13-year-old girls who wrote the story that became the Tiny Toon Adventures episode “Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian.”

Elsewhere on the Internet, check out this interview with Tristan Black Wolf, a personal essay from Bill Kieffer on Our Queer Stories, and Dronon’s review of The Furry Future.

Congratulations, everyone!

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Upcoming deadlines: Gods With Fur closes May 1.

New markets: Fur Reality’s conbook is open for submissions on this year’s theme of “Believe,” with “a focus on the paranormal, the mysterious and the weird.” Maximum 3000 words, PG-13 rating, deadline July 18.

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

Ocean Tigrox has been selected as the editor of the next volume of our Tales From the Guild anthology! Watch the forums for more information as the project takes shape.

The Cóyotl Awards are now open for nominations! This year’s awards ceremony will be held at Rocky Mountain Fur Con.

Our cabin for the April session of Camp NaNoWriMo is filling up fast! Come join us — see details here.

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here. (Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!)

Elsewhere on the Internet, we have a Goodreads group with a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that). We also have a Telegram group, and you can find more info on that and a link in this thread.

Remember, we’re always open for guest blog post submissions from FWG members — it’s a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for the details.

Have a happy and creative month! If you have news, suggestions, or other feedback to share, send an email to furwritersguild (at) gmail.com or leave a comment below.