For those who don’t know you, can you introduce yourself and your work?
Hello! My name is Cedric G! Bacon, or occasionally Batced but primarily by the former. I am a writer and editor, former publisher of Thurston Howl Publications, and you might’ve seen my work in things like Furry Trash, Foxers and Fur-iefs, Lost in Time, Leave the Lights On, ROAR 11, and Thrill of the Hunt. I’m something of a bat-of-all trades, writing where an idea takes me, but I’m probably best known for horror and erotica, sometimes merging both.
Do you see a difference between diversity of authors and diversity of characters? Or are they intrinsically linked? Are there any common failings you see amongst furry fiction?
I think usually when you’re writing about diversity it helps to have knowledge of the subject so that your character would ring true instead of seeming like a trope or a just a stock character plucked from your brain’s casting call. I remember reading the book Trigger Warning by William W. and J.A. Johnstone (never mind the fact that William Johnstone, famous for his western novels, had been dead for almost twenty years when that book came out and so his relative uses the older man’s name on “new” work) which was replete with condemnations of the higher education and even diversity classes, which are shown to be ridiculous and coddling and rewarding for the most minimal of efforts, including a scene where the “protagonist” is made to feel shame for being a war veteran. I think the author—whom I suspect is someone in their 60s—just regurgitated whatever it is they’re spoonfed through far-right media and believed that that’s what diversity and especially the need for diverse conversation, is really like, and after reading I was just left uncomfortable that there are people who would rather retain the status quo as it is instead of trying to make changes to broaden diverse opportunities where there might not be any.
As welcoming as furry fiction is, I do think there is this absence that keeps diversity from being much wider than it is. There are some truly well meaning individuals but it’s almost like not enough gets spotlighted or put out and it is a shame really. Part of that also falls on those who could have a voice and a platform but do not use it, or perhaps have used it and are burnt out by it. That I can understand due to how hard it can be trying to make the conversation happen and you’re met by many walls and find you can’t quite cross the bridge you’d like to make inroads. Little by little it will get better I feel as more will come to the fandom and wish to write stories that do showcase more voices that you would not typically find, but it does take time. Which I also do think is on our side.
Do you believe progress has been made in the last few years?
Slowly and surely it has, but not nearly enough. When we ran Difursity Volume 2 through THP, our turnout was not as plentiful as we would’ve liked. However, I think we do have many essayists and non-fiction writers coming into the fold who have many things to say and ideas, so where Difursity Volume 2 did not have as much widespread reach as its predecessor, it did get a lot of ideas going for some that “Hey, I can express myself and my thoughts on this topic without fear of being shut down for being ‘uppity’.” I would love to see some more of that happen, and I would gladly do my part as well to get the engines roaring on more diverse volumes and work in the furry fiction community.
Does the degree of anonymity of a fursona being your public face help or hinder your goals as an author in the furry community?
I think engagement and talking with others and making connections helps in the furry community, as a lot of interactions do tend to be behind screens and keyboards so that face begins merging with the real person behind the fursona, so that even if your fursona is a winged canine-dragon creature and that’s not who you are offline away from the furry community, it doesn’t really make anyone who is already a fan or coming to know you think different about you. Your goals, I think, are what you want of them, and for me in the furry community, my goals were at the start to get back into writing after a long spell away, make connections with my peers, share some ideas with said peers, and learn new things along the way…maybe about the craft I’ve devoted a chunk of my life to or even about myself and my own worldviews. But as for if that degree of anonymity has helped or hindered those goals? I think they have helped, but it had to take a lot on my part to let any masks or walls come down and trust the other parties I conversed with, same as I imagine it would be for them when talking to me. It would only hinder if I was not able to do that and trust my peers and open up when needing help or advice, or actually developing friendships with a few I’ve been grateful enough to meet in person.
What do you think is the most important thing for a writer to do when considering diversity?
Patience. Absolutely the most important thing to keep in mind. If a writer is thinking about diversity, think first about what means and don’t make any assumptions and just do the first thing that you think you may know about diversity. Look around, talk to folk who have more experience or have some insight about their own struggles for diverse conversations.
There is this whole thing about “woke” but it’s a corruption of what it actually meant to be woke, in that it means keeping one’s eyes open at all times to the situation be it to the injustices racial, social, or political (and that’s a clue that anyone who is using the term to slag something that they don’t like with the most bad faith argument, you know that is someone to definitely side-eye). But when I say that it does matter to stay woke, it means exactly what it was supposed to mean, especially when thinking about diversity and ask yourself as that writer about why is there so much anger among marginalized communities and voices, and especially to stay woke and read the room to know that even though the answer may be complicated to discover, you as the writer will have an understanding about diversity and that need for more diverse voices instead of ones that regurgitate points that do not challenge anything or make efforts to make changes.
What book featuring diverse characters and/or written by a diverse author would you most recommend to people?
Not a book though it was based upon a book, so I’m going to cheat a little here, but I do think many should check out the 2020 HBO series Lovecraft Country, inspired by the book of the same name by Matt Ruff. By title alone would probably be put off by it due to the legacy which surrounds author H.P. Lovecraft and his very loud statements on race both in his letters and in his fiction, but that is actually something that is worked to the show’s advantage, as the main protagonist is a young black man who too has to grapple with being a fan of Lovecraft while knowing full well Lovecraft might not have enjoyed having him as a fan.
Executive produced by a woman of color in Misha Green, and with one of the producers being Jordan Peele, it already ticks of the box of diversity in a big way, but goes a step further with its cast, with Jurnee Smollett (whom I rather enjoyed as the real star of Birds of Prey when shy played Dinah Lance/Black Canary) alongside Jonathan Majors, Michael K. Williams, Jamie Chung, it furthers having diverse voices and roles with its focus on a young black man (played by Majors) and his family’s life in 1950s America, which is stark and uncompromising in its vocal disdain for people of color (loudly at that time, muted but still unfortunately in existence now) and right off the jump in the first episode, you have a scene involving a chase out of town by a lynch mob and threats of being lynched by racist policemen when the protagonists don’t leave a sundown town by the required time.
Rather than be a straight adaptation of the novel, the series makes many, many changes by giving more roles for women and dropping some plotlines that were wayward in the novel and making things streamlined and tight. But one of the things that I did find to be a triumph was using the 1921 Tulsa race massacre as a major plot point, but the intriguing parts are the character development in this one episode that focuses on family, homosexuality, abuse, and how sometimes the roots of generational evil isn’t found in some dusty old tome like the Necronomicon, that it can be found within us as the individual unless we break the cycle. The show is violent, brilliantly choreographed, uncompromising in its language and historical framing (another episode takes place during the funeral for Emmett Till, and while we in the modern age can’t quite comprehend the real horror and drama of what happened to him, much like the Tulsa massacre using it in fiction I hope inspires the curious to look further and read and remember and equally never forget, hoping it doesn’t happen to someone else), sexuality and identity, all packed within ten episodes that, four years later, I still think was the greatest TV show on the subject of diversity I’ve ever watched.
And finally, where can we find your works?
I’m in the process of getting them uploaded to furaffinity and SoFurry, so just stay tuned for that eventual update. In the meantime, if you have these in your bookshelves, find me in:
Ironclaw: Book of Legends (“The Black City”)
Furry Trash (“One Night Last Summer”)
Slashers (“Komakino”)
Thrill of the Hunt (“Silhouettes”)
Foxers and Fur-iefs (“Getchoo”)
Lost in Time (“Spear and Fang”)
Leave the Lights On (“Wormwood”, “Old Garfield’s Debt”, “The Shambler in the Dark”)
The Electric Sewer (“The Jack”)
Species: Wildcats (“Wanderlust”)
Howloween (“Venus in White”)
Howloween 2 (“Upon Thy Grave”)
Swept Under the Fur Rug (“Ikezu”)
Furmiliar Spaces (“El Scorcho”, prequel to “Getchoo” in Foxers and Fur-iefs)
The Furry Cookbook (“The Flower of Carnage”)
ROAR 11 (“Poyekhali!”)
Furries Hate Nazis (“The Battler”)
12 Days of Yiffmas (“Yule Carol”)
Paw-ly Love (“Catch a Wave”)
Furry Writers’ Guild 