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Tag: anthology

Call for submissions: The Symbol of a Nation, a new anthology edited by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer. This goes out a little late (sorry). You might also be interested in others announced here at Adjective Species. 

Goal Publications is announcing its first original short story anthology.

Title: The Symbol of a Nation. Theme: national animals. Deadline: December 1st, 2016.goal-publications-full-white-bg

Wanted: original short stories (no reprints) of 2,000 to 15,000 words, featuring furries that are the national animals of countries, such as Afghanistan’s snow leopard, Algeria’s fennec, Australia’s red kangaroo, Bangladesh’s tiger, Canada’s beaver, Denmark’s swan, Eritrea’s camel, France’s rooster (fighting cock), Germany’s black eagle, Honduras’ white-tailed deer, Italy’s wolf, the U.S.’s bald eagle … There are over 200 countries and most of them have a national animal.

For this anthology, we are extending the theme to the official animals of provinces and states. There are several animals such as the koala (Queensland) and platypus (New South Wales) of Australia, or the giant squirrel (Maharashtra) and red panda (Sikkim) of India, or the coyote (South Dakota) and raccoon (Tennessee) of North America that are not national animals, but are the official animals of provinces or states.

But: this is limited to the officially adopted animals (including birds) of national or sub-national entities only. No sports team mascots, corporate mascots like the NBC peacock, political party mascots, or breakfast cereal mascots. No fictional official animals or countries like Transylvania and vampire bats. However, some countries have both a national animal and a national bird, such as Chile – its animal is the huemal, an Andean deer, and its bird is the Andean condor. We will accept stories featuring either or both.

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ROAR Volume 7: Legendary – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

51vtrw4caklROAR volume 7, Legendary, edited by Mary E. Lowd.
Dallas, TX, Bad Dog Books, June 2016, trade paperback $19.95 (377 pages), Kindle $9.95.

ROAR volume 7, Bad Dog Books’ annual anthology of non-erotic furry adventure short fiction, is the second edited by Mary E. Lowd following last year’s vol. 6 devoted to Scoundrels. It is slightly smaller – 17 stories rather than 28, and 377 pages rather than 394 – but is still larger than the volumes edited by Buck C. Turner. This year’s theme is Legends/Legendary; the legends that anthro animals listen to and live by – or not.

In “Crouching Tiger, Standing Crane” by Kyla Chapek, three Oriental students – a fox, a crane, and a snake – listen to a tigress fortuneteller as she relates the history of their tiger-crane school of martial arts. “The Manchurian government of the Qing dynasty had become corrupt beyond measure. At the same time the Shaolin style [of Kung Fu] had become popular, gaining great respect and power within the martial arts world.” (p. 14) This is the story of how the betrayed Shaolin monks went underground and continued to teach their style, told with anthro animals: The Bengal tiger, snow leopard, and clouded leopard clans, disguised as traveling performers; their meeting the fragile-appearing cranes; marriage resulting despite official disapproval (“‘The Manchu do not look kindly on cross breed relationships, let along cross clan.’” –p. 20); betrayal and death; and the children, foster brothers Hoong Man Ting (crane) and Wu Ah Phieu (tiger), despite their own families’ anthropomorphic disapproval (“‘A crane couldn’t use tiger style because they lack paws with strong digits and claws; conversely a tiger cannot use crane style because he lacks a beak and the stance would be completely unnatural.’” –pgs. 29-30), leading to the climax showing how the two styles were merged.

“The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon” by Renee Carter Hall, tells how Frog used to have the most beautiful voice in the swamp; until one night when he swallowed a bucketful of water that had the full moon shining in it, and everything went dark. He learns what he must do to replace the moon, but that is why his voice has never been the same.

Hall paints an unforgettable word-picture of the pond in the dark night, except when Frog opens his mouth to talk and blinding moonbeams shoot out. This legend is an ethereal example of poetic writing:

“It didn’t seem to be the pond he’d known as a tadpole. In the stark light of his moonbeam, the pale stones led him across an expanse of water larger than he’d ever seen before. Soon there were no more marsh-reeds or cattails at the edges of his sight. There was only darkness and the moonpath, and when Frog dared to look up, even the stars had disappeared. He didn’t look up again after that, keeping his light and his eyes focused on the stones just ahead.” (p. 53)

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Fragments of Life’s Heart: Vol. 1 – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

41o2zwqenjl-_sy346_Fragments of Life’s Heart, volume 1, editors: Laura “Munchkin” Lewis [&] Stefano “Mando” Zocchi.
Manvel, TX, Weasel Press, June 2016, trade paperback $19.95 (400 pages), Kindle $4.99.

Fragments of Life’s Heart is a new anthology of anthropomorphic stories of Love. “Join us as we explore the many different forms of love—family love, forbidden love, love that embraces what society always taught was wrong.”

This volume 1 contains “seventeen anthropomorphic stories with all different forms of sexuality and relationships, in a journey across genres, worlds, and time.”

“Tending the Fires” by Jess E. Owen features nomadic desert fennecs. Nara, a successful young bard from the Wadi Ocar, returns home for her sister Sarayya’s wedding after six successful years of traveling and learning in foreign lands. Nara looks forward to rejoining her loving family, but although her father, brothers, and sisters embrace her warmly, she is shocked when Arwa, her mother, greets her formally but coldly as an honored guest, not family. Arwa hasn’t even read the six years’ worth of letters that Nara sent home regularly. Nara must discover what she has done wrong in her mother’s eyes, and how to correct it in the midst of a colorful tribal wedding celebration.

Owen creates a rich North African (though it is another planet) setting:

“Nara sat with her family while Sarayya and her new husband made their vows in the blended light of the dying sun, the rising moon and emerging stars, and distant, blue Ocarus.

Time stilled as Nara watched her little sister’s face, glowing, and linked her heart and her life to a new tent, a new family – Nara’s new brother, a whole new addition. Their family had grown. Nara’s heart seemed to swell and expand and encompass the new foxes her sister had come to love, and now, they were all one. As darkness bloomed over them, Nara mingled with the in-laws, rapidly learning names and gossip.

It was not long before the men produced their tablah drums and a stringed rebab, and they broke into long recitations of songs by desert poets, all memorized and passed down for hundreds of years. […]” (p. 33)

In “Transitions” by Mog Moogle, Geoffrey has a secret. Or Freya does. He/she is transgender. The male otter has felt that he was really female ever since puberty. Geoff’s mother has accepted his decision, but his father has stubbornly insisted that he is 100% his son. So Geoff has gone through middle and high school as Geoffrey. Only his best friend, Douglass, a mole, has known his/her secret and has recognized her as Freya – and become her lover. Now that they have both graduated from high school and Doug is going into the U.S. Army, Geoff is set to leave for the university – and he/she’s decided to openly start her new life as Freya. Her mother is supportive, but confronting her father as a girl –

Will his/her father’s love for his offspring transcend his/her sexual identity?

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Demonic Anthology Seven Deadly Sins – OPEN FOR SUBMISSION

by Pup Matthias

_the_seven_deadly_sins_

Art by Open-Face

Halloween is upon us. The air is getting chillier, the leaves are changing, and our darkest thoughts start to bubble to the surface. While this isn’t a Halloween or even fully a horror anthology, this one offers a look at our own twisted minds to fulfill our most primal needs. And isn’t that what Halloween is all about? Thurston Howl Publications is proud to present its new demonic anthology, Seven Deadly Sins and they are open to your submissions.

The theme should already be clear to anyone with a passing knowledge of religion, but for those wondering what to base their story on…

Seven Deadly Sins has been a literary trope for centuries, popularized by Italian poet Dante. They are as follows: pride, greed, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, and sloth. This collection will be divided respectively into the seven parts. We want to see anthro-animal characters at their darkest and weakest moments: at the whorehouse, at the chopping block, in the morgue, in the dining room with the candlestick.

Edited by Thurston Howl, the inspiration for the anthology comes from his own experience.

The inspiration for this anthology came from a personal struggle. Recently, I felt a smoldering rage toward a close acquaintance of mine who had a particular habit for causing local trouble. Instead of acting on that anger, I tried to pick apart whether what I was feeling: wrath…or envy…or even just an insult to my pride. Gradually, I thought of a couple of short story ideas for a few of the seven deadly sins, and then it hit me to edit a furry anthology with the theme.

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Poem Anthology Civilized Beasts 2016 – OPEN FOR SUBMISSION

by Pup Matthias

2237d0_279de4e132234f0dbc1eb187f7931614When most of us think of Furry writing we think of your standard novels, novellas, short stories, even comics, but one form that doesn’t get the same attention is poetry. Mainly cause there hasn’t been too many opportunities in the fandom to showcase anthropomorphic poems. There are a few exceptions like Heat and the soon to be released anthology Wolf Warrior III which offer collections that mix poems with short stories, but there hasn’t been an anthology dedicated to poetry alone. Until last year when Laura “Munchkin” Govednik released Civilized Beast. Now she’s back again for round two. Civilized Beast 2016 is open for submission.

So where did the idea of doing a poem anthology come from?

The idea for Civilized Beasts started in the Furry Writer’s Guild.  I was surprised to find there were other members and future members who also had a high interest in poetry and hoped to see more of it in the community.  Through various discussions, I realized that a poetry collection about animals for animals could be a great way for people in and out of the furry community to connect.

When it comes to theme, Civilized Beasts does the same thing as Heat by having a generally open theme for everyone to play with.

The theme this year is the same as last year: Animals, be it the outside observation of animals, in the mind of an animal, or the symbolism of an animal.  By leaving the theme so open, it allowed poets a lot of freedom last year, and an incredible variety of poetry was submitted because of it.  It is my hope that poets will be just as inspired this year, so I decided not to limit the theme.

Munchkin is looking for all kinds of poems. Whether they are your traditional rhymes, sonnets, haiku, or free verse. You are free to write what speaks to you. Munchkin wants you to think outside the box. To go wild. There’s even no word count limit to your poems.

For anyone interested, there’s no maximum or minimum line count, though longer poems will be looked at more critically since we only have so many pages to work with. 

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Purrfect Tails – OPEN FOR SUBMISSION

by Pup Matthias

7cf29bba-07f0-4b2b-8767-f2562fedf847This is different, yet it’s familiar. Say one day you are walking down the street doing your business when someone catches your eye. They look human. They have the eyes, nose, lips, skin, but that’s not what grabbed your attention. It was the ears for they are not human, but of an animal. Your first though is of a cat. Then you look down to notice a tail. You want to know more about this person. What they are, why they are like this, and maybe, just maybe, you want to explore more. That is what Tarl “Voice” Hoch presents to use with his new erotic neko anthology, Purrfect Tails, and they are OPEN FOR SUBMISSION!

So first thing first to those who don’t know, what on earth is even a neko?

A neko is a character who is either male or female with feline characteristics on a human body, generally a pair of ears, and in many cases, a tail. Unlike a furry character, they generally look human or extremely close to it rather than being a sort of half breed between a cat and a human. They generally still act like cats, or have cat-like tendencies, but also function as normal people as well.

A good place to learn more about Nekos is here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CatGirl

Edited by Tarl “Voice” Hoch, best known for doing horror anthologies, he got to become an editor cause as he puts it he fell into it.

I had been noticing that there was a distinct lack of horror books/anthologies in the fandom and made a tweet about it. Next thing I knew, I was getting all of these favorites and replies to it and Fuzz said FurPlanet were interested in it. So I wrote up a proposal and call for submissions and that was that. I learned a lot of lessons from that first anthology, had some good and bad experiences, but in the end it helped me to grow as a writer.

Already, Tarl has produced many works both within and outside the fandom.

I have a horror anthology published by FurPlanet titled Abandoned Places and I am currently working on a science fiction/horror anthology which will also be published by FurPlanet. I also wrote the story for an 18+ comic which was illustrated and printed by KomicKrazi and only available by sending me a request or at Fur-Eh! in Edmonton. Other than those, I am published in a number of anthologies inside and outside of the furry fandom, a list of which can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5759304.Tarl_Voice_Hoch

But that still leaves us with the question, why is Tarl interested in making an erotic anthology around nekoes?

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The Dogs of War: military fiction anthology OPEN FOR SUBMISSION

by Pup Matthias

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Art by SabretoothedErmine

War. War never changes. Obvious Fallout reference aside, and yet it’s a subject that our fandom never fully explored. Especially in an anthology, but that changes. The new war theme anthology The Dogs of War is OPEN FOR SUBMISSION. Headed by our own Fred Patten, this anthology, as stated, covers the topic of war, but that doesn’t mean every story has to be your typical “war” story.

These [stories] may be serious or humorous, featuring battle action or the boredom of peacetime, from grim battlefields to recruiting stations.  Warfare from Bronze Age battles to Middle Ages warfare to far-future interstellar battles.  Anything with a military or army (or navy) theme and animal characters.  

You are free to tell your war story the way you want. You can do an All Quiet on the Western Front or a MASH. Do something modern or travel to the past or future. Plus any genre of your choosing from sci fi to fantasy to steampunk to whatever your creative mind can come up with. But that leaves us with a question. How did Fred come up with doing a war theme anthology?

Frankly, it was by accident.  Wikipedia ran an 1876 political cartoon by John Tenniel about the then-current political/military tensions in the Balkans that was based on Shakespeare’s famous line about “the Dogs of War” from his Julius Caesar.  I realized that none of the furry specialty presses had published an anthology of military stories yet.  I proposed it to FurPlanet before someone else used the theme.

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Coming Soon: Gods With Fur – New Anthology by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

patten08Gods With Fur, Edited by Fred Patten, Cover by Teagan Gavet
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, $19.95 (453 Pages)

Fred Patten’s newest anthology, Gods with Fur, will go on sale at Anthrocon 2016 at the end of this month. Published by FurPlanet Productions, the trade paperback book contains 23 original stories by Kyell Gold, Mary E. Lowd, Michael H. Payne, and more, featuring the gods of anthropomorphic worlds and the anthropomorphic gods of our world.

You may know about Egyptian mythology’s jackal-headed Anubis, but do you know about wolf-headed Wepwawet? You may know about China’s Monkey King or the native North Americans’ Coyote (well, they say they’re gods), but do you know about the Aztecs’ 400 drunken rabbits?

Here are historic gods, the gods of their authors’ series (Kyell Gold’s Forrester University; Heidi Vlach’s Aligare, Kris Schnee’s TaleSpace), and totally original gods:

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Charity Anthology Wolf Warriors III: Winter Wolves – OPEN FOR SUBMISSION.

by Pup Matthias

logo3Wolves are known for being proud, majestic creatures. Known for their loyalty, courage, and intelligence – but it wasn’t always that way. There was a time people saw wolves as only monsters and creatures to fear, for they hunt in the night, kill livestock, and send eerie howls to the full moon. These fears have almost driven these misunderstood creatures into extinction.  As scientist studied them more, the more public opinion of them began to change – but stereotypes are hard to get rid of.

That’s why organizations like the National Wolfwatcher Coalition strive to ‘educate, advocate, and participate’ for the long term recovery and the preservation of wolves based on the best available science and the principles of democracy.‘ One of those ways is through their popular anthology, Wolf Warriors.  

You can be a part of it.  Going into it’s third volume, Wolf Warriors III is being edited by Thurston Howl and published by Thurston Howl Publications. The anthology is used as a fundraiser for the National Wolfwatcher Coalition to continue their mission. The idea for the anthology played a huge part in getting Thurston Howl Publications off the ground and putting Howl’s editing skills to work.

Thurston Howl Publications is an odd duck in furry publishing:

“THP is one of the world’s first furry-inclusive (as opposed to furry-exclusive and furry-excluding/non-furry) publishing house. Based in TN, it publishes almost ten books a year, has a staff of almost thirty people, and, so far, has received a nomination for the Ursa Major Award for its nonfiction furry essay collection published last year. (Furries Among Us). It is a very good group, and I’ve loved all of our clients so far.”

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New anthro fiction anthology The Society Pages – OPEN FOR SUBMISSION.

by Pup Matthias

635924657937624242-zoo2There’s a vast community of writers within the Furry Fandom.  From building community sites like SoFurry, to their own Furry Writers Guild, they come together to explore the anthropomorphic writing arts with novels, comics, and anthologies.  Many anthologies are being made in the fandom, and they’re always looking for new talent.  Keep your ears perked for announcements about anthologies open for submission, and you may find one with a vision that inspires you to get involved.

Did you like Zootopia, and the way Disney brought an anthropomorphic world to life, accounting for all the different sizes and species and their needs?  Did it make you imagine your own society of walking, talking animals? Zootopia was only about mammals, but what about reptiles, birds or insects? Will they all live together, or is one group seen as lesser to another?

If you think about this when you write, The Society Pages is the anthology for you.

The Society Pages is edited by Lily White, known for writing the NSFW webcomic Pierce Me. She founded Scratchpost Press earlier this year to publish a variety of work she found lacking in the fandom. Lily says:

“I’ve always wanted to work in publishing so this seemed like a great way to just dive in.”

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