Not All Furries Hate The Book...
Back in the old days, comic books used to always include a letters column near the end of each issue. I never wrote a fan letter, but I enjoyed reading those mailed in by others. It fostered a sense of community among those who read the comic. If I were tech-savvy, I’d start a message board. But I’m not tech-savvy. If I were further along in my career, I’d have someone volunteer to do this for me. But as far as my career goes, I’m a baby. Seriously, in terms of building a writing career I’m, like, a genuine 100% crappin’ my diaper, spitting up, occasionally cute-smiling baby. So a message board is out of the question.
Besides,these days there are a number of ways readers reach out to authors. I’ve gotten feedback from Cushingistas via Twitter, comments left on older, more obscure posts of my blog, etc.)
So, in order to centralize all the feedback in one place, I’m starting an irregularly-published “letters” column. Moreover, I hereby promise that I won’t cherry-pick the most favorable feedback. Yes, in the interest of even-handedness, I’ll even highlight your hate “mail” (hate-tweet, hate-status, hate…well, get get the point.)
To whit…
Back in January, self-proclaimed furry Christopher started a thread on my almost-never-noticed Amazon.com message board with the ominous title “WTF are you?” He goes on to write:
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From the title “How to Eat Fried Furries”, am I to assume you’re yet another
in the misinformed about what a furry fan really is, or are you one of the
a’holes who knows nothing about it and decided to write a book bashing us?
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I never got around to answering him on the Amazon board, so I guess I’ll go ahead and give an answer here (while I’m on the subject.)
Christopher: Your question presumes that I’m either A. uninformed or B. an “a’hole” who knows nothing about furries and wrote the book to bash the furry community. Surely, this is a false dilemma. It could be rightly said that the furries in my book aren’t even furries. In fact, one of longer reviews of the book makes that observation. To me, the book was really more about society trying to stitch together pseudo-solutions (for example, forcing people into animal costumes to rationalize cannibalism as a remedy for world hunger). I even thought about giving the book another title (PANTOMIME PLANET was one possibility I was kicking around). But ultimately, HOW TO EAT FRIED FURRIES had a definite Bizarro feel to it, and a Python feel to it, too (can’t you just hear Eric Idle saying that?).
However, if it makes you feel better, I hereby promise to never write a book about furries again. I’m sure that will delight the furries (as well as any potential agents reading this).
Moving right along…
In March things began to improve. I woke up bleary-eyed one Saturday morning to find a tweet from Travis, a reader from Australia, who really dug my story “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Piggy Class” in the John Skipp anthology, Werewolves & Shape Shifters: Encounters with the Beast Within. As a newer author, I have to confess this is the sort of stuff that thrills me. Unfortunately, I’ve never been to Australia. Chances are, I’ll never travel there (my only foreign travel was a trip to Quebec, Canada a few years ago). But my story’s in Australia — in bookstores and in the mind of a reader who enjoyed it enough to let me know.
Tweets being, by their nature, concise, Travis keeps his praise short and sweet.
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“The short story ‘Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Piggy Class” by @NicoleCushing is brilliant…”
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(Now all I have to do is figure out the exchange rate between U.S. and Australian dollars so I can properly reimburse the man).
May brought more positive feedback from Fried Furries reader Ted, who left a neat-o message in the comments section on the I Read Odd Books review site.
Ted says…
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A wonderful book , the next time any misguided vagina hater
points out that women are not equipped to produce subversive
humour I will point them to this book…I really enjoyed Cushing’s
style ,the way each each story is interlinked and I even tried
some of the recipes but I was unable to locate Bunnybeer so
maybe that’s why the hamburger pie ended up a bit dry.
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Leaving aside, for the moment, the small point that most misogynists don’t hate the vagina per se but rather everything else that surrounds it, I enjoy Ted’s enthusiasm for the books’ unconventional structure. Some other folks (not naming names, let’s just call them Ublishers-Pay Eekly-Way) were ambivalent on the matter…which is better than totally getting panned…but not as good as being lavished with unreserved praise. Alas, Fried Furries seems to have landed in PW purgatory. (To check out the PW review, go to the Fried Furries Amazon.com page. )
(By the way Ted spelled “humour”, I wonder if he’s another one of them-thar foreigners who like my book! I hope so. I’m not dissing American readers, but there’s just something really cool about having readers in other countries).
As for my subversive humor/humour, I’ve been playing around with a variety of different styles lately. Some more humo(u)rous than others. Some not humo(u)rous at all. Some of the stuff I’ve been writing lately has just been unrelentingly grim. But I suspect a dash of dark humo(u)r will always weave itself into everything I write.
Finally…June brought us new reader Larry, who offered some more praise for Werewolves & Shape Shifters (left as a comment on an antediluvian — well, about one year old — post I wrote announcing the TOC). There’s some kudos for my story, but the bulk of the praise really goes out to editor John Skipp.
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Just finished this book, its incredibly awesome and your story was amazing!
I especially liked the range and variety of authors, from the classic masters to the
current trailblazers,such as yourself. John Skipp does the best anthologies ever.
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Larry: You’ll be delighted to know that Skipp has another anthology in the series coming out, Demons: Encounters With The Devil and His Minions, Fallen Angels, & The Possessed. And have you already checked out his Zombie anthology from a few years back? Anyway, thanks for the kind words. Being in the same table of contents as Lovecraft, Gaiman, and George R.R. Martin is probably the high water mark of my career so far. I’m now focusing on crafting even better stories than “Piggy Class”, and I’m at work on my first novel, too.
By the way, Larry maintains a fascinating blog about all things boobies horror (wherein there are photos of several Cthulhu/”My Little Pony” hybrids that are to die for…no pun intended). Y’all should check it out.
Well, that’s all I have energy for tonight, kiddies. I’ll try to provide this “Reader Mail” feature every so often. If you’d like to give feedback (good, bad, or — like PW — ambivalent) about my fiction, feel free to contact me on Facebook, Twitter, this blog, or — if you must be old fashioned about it — via email at nicolecushingwriter (at) gmail (dot) com.
