MyFursona.com

Jul 30, 2008 8:48am

After my first blog post here, I was surprised by the number of shout-outs I got from people who didn't even know me. That was pretty cool. What was even cooler was the markedly positive and enthusiastic response I got to my mentioning that I'm a furry writer. As a writer myself, I know that it can be pretty tough to get furries excited about the written work that the fandom has to offer (and triply so if that written work isn't somehow about sex). Still, the people who appreciate furry writing are out there, and it was nice to see that they're here, too.

In case people were curious, I do have my own writing blog elsewhere, where I go into more detail about my actual writing and my writing process. You can find that here: http://rikoshi.blogspot.com

At Anthrocon last month, I was thrilled to see the turnout at places like the Sofawolf Press booth and the FurPlanet table, showing that even in this fandom dominated by visual art, the written stuff isn't being neglected entirely (granted, there were comic works being distributed by both of those vendors, but I did see, with my own eyes, actual books being purchased, too!). I like to think that there's more and more good quality furry writing available lately, and that word of mouth is starting to pick up with regard to the fact that, hey, a lot of this stuff is actually worth reading.

Sure, furry writing's never going to overtake artwork in terms of exposure and popularity, but I'm just happy knowing that it's reaching more and more people. It's a bit tough, since individual artists can always just throw their work up online and people can see, at a glance, the talent they're dealing with; writing's a little trickier, since it involves a much greater investment on the part of the audience and has a much more limited bandwidth in terms of distribution and reaching its public.

I try to do my own small part in that. I'm happy to have had some of my work published through some of the various small presses within the fandom; I'm actually a big fan of small press in general, so I'm doubly-pleased to get to contribute my own $0.02 to the cause. (Speaking of which, to other interested writers: I know that most of the furry presses out there are always looking for new writers to submit their work, so I'd urge folks to look around and see who's accepting submissions if they're looking for a bit of exposure for themselves.)