Speaking of Scalzi (who helped get the word out), he's been president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America; his blog has a high readership and he really gave this issue a good dose of exposure. MCA Hogarth is a type of person in furry fandom I like to see - someone whose talents allow her to be a moderately successful creator who can work both within furry fandom and outside of it. (Ursula Vernon is another such person.) And there have been a couple of interesting discussions in SF fandom recently that are very-very-tangentially related to furry fandom.
For example, when Scalzi found his name being repeatedly invoked by a particularly nasty troll, he started a Counteract a Bigot fundraising drive for charity. In a short period of time it's done extremely well! And he devised an icon for it, the Gamma Bunny. (Latest update is here.)
A second stir-up in SF fandom... One of the things I enjoyed at What The Fur a few years ago was a talk with a fellow named Rene, who had a collection of old children's books from Europe with anthropomorphic artwork. Neat stuff. He's more involved in SF than in Furry, and for years has been a high-end staff member of Canadian SF cons in Quebec, also helping out in other parts of the country, Canadian Worldcons, etc. Sadly, at an event called Readercon, he sexually harassed someone, and this caused a major drama storm about harassment, creeping, women in SF, constaff policies, personal responsibilities and social self-awareness. Scalzi's initial comments are here, along with a link to a chronology - and finally, an essay about creeping.
Speaking of Scalzi (who helped get the word out), he's been president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America; his blog has a high readership and he really gave this issue a good dose of exposure. MCA Hogarth is a type of person in furry fandom I like to see - someone whose talents allow her to be a moderately successful creator who can work both within furry fandom and outside of it. (Ursula Vernon is another such person.) And there have been a couple of interesting discussions in SF fandom recently that are very-very-tangentially related to furry fandom.
For example, when Scalzi found his name being repeatedly invoked by a particularly nasty troll, he started a Counteract a Bigot fundraising drive for charity. In a short period of time it's done extremely well! And he devised an icon for it, the Gamma Bunny. (Latest update is here.)
A second stir-up in SF fandom... One of the things I enjoyed at What The Fur a few years ago was a talk with a fellow named Rene, who had a collection of old children's books from Europe with anthropomorphic artwork. Neat stuff. He's more involved in SF than in Furry, and for years has been a high-end staff member of Canadian SF cons in Quebec, also helping out in other parts of the country, Canadian Worldcons, etc. Sadly, at an event called Readercon, he sexually harassed someone, and this caused a major drama storm about harassment, creeping, women in SF, constaff policies, personal responsibilities and social self-awareness. Scalzi's initial comments are here, along with a link to a chronology - and finally, an essay about creeping.