July in Disability Pride month, and for this, we discussed disability in furry fiction with Anastasia Spinet, who was happy to answer some questions about how her disability has affected her life and her writing, including her debut novel Quicksilver.
For those who don’t know you, can you introduce yourself and your work?
Hi! I typically go by “Emp” in online and fandom spaces, but my penname is Anastasia Spinet. I’ve always loved anthropomorphic characters, but I officially started labelling myself as a “furry” around 2002 when I discovered the term on Neopets. I’m a vet tech by trade, and when I’m not writing or wrangling saucy cats, I can be found hanging in the woods, talking to crows, reading books, or gaming. I’m pretty much the stereotypical “woodsy, witchy introvert” type. I’m here for disability month because I have a super rare disability called Holt-Oram Syndrome (AKA, “hand-heart syndrome”) that impacts pretty much every facet of my life. It’s a chromosomal mutation that impedes the development of the limbs and heart in utero. For me, that means a deformed left hand, a pacemaker, and severe chronic fatigue. I often joke that X-Men lied to me as a kid, because being a mutant cyborg in the real world is rather tedious lol.
I published my first official paid piece when I was 17, where a short I wrote appeared as an in-game readable book item for a super obscure (and dearly missed) online pet sim called NeuroGalaxy. As an adult, I’ve been published in a handful of anthologies since 2019, and this year I published my first novel, an anthropomorphic cyberpunk adventure called Quicksilver. Usually my work has a supernatural or folkloric slant to it, but Quicksilver is unique among my pieces in that it’s cyberpunk, and I drew on my own real-world experiences with technology, disability, and my fears over loss of bodily autonomy as a means of flavoring the narrative and its themes.
How do you believe your disability has shaped your work?
It is absolutely a major reason why I enjoy furry fiction, in addition to other forms of SF/F that feature non-human (ie: alien, monster, robot, etc) protagonists. My bread and butter is protagonists who aren’t physically human. I was very isolated in my formative years due to my hand deformity. Starting around 6 years old, when I began attending public school, I had to deal with a lot of “don’t be her friend! If you touch her, your hands will look like that too!” I was not old enough to correctly articulate the negative emotions I felt from dealing with that five days a week for several hours every day, so I fell into a world of vivid escapism and started creating my own stories – typically involving cats — from a very early age. I also loved animals, largely because they would still interact with me and love me with all their hearts no matter how I looked. A lot of my dissatisfaction with my body and the fears I felt from emergency medical intervention (which I am super grateful for it, but as a kid you don’t fully understand why they are sticking needles in you or busting open your sternum, and that terror stays forever) was poured into the character Jet, who I created when I was still in grade school to help me deal with these emotions.
Additionally, there are certain clusters of tropes that I strongly enjoy writing (and reading) because they have parallels to my own experiences, but are removed enough that I can enjoy the escapism aspect of the story. A lot of furry novels and series that I’m quick to recommend to others also utilise a lot of these tropes. I especially love a protagonist who is born with a trait they never would have chosen to posses, and I enjoy seeing protagonists like that learn to grow, change, and navigate their own unique reality. Both Tammy and Jet from Quicksilver fall under this trope, and I used my own emotions towards my body and my life to color certain aspects of their experiences, especially in regards to medical experimentation, self-hatred, and a sense of isolation from their own communities. I’m very focused on emotions when it comes to writing, because I feel that emotions are what connects us and makes us human. You might not be able to understand how it feels to have a deformity or a hunk of metal powering your heart, but I think we have all felt isolated or persecuted at some point in our lives, and I think exploring those feelings through entertaining fiction can help open discussions and build bridges with people who we might otherwise see ourselves as having little in common with.
How do you feel the wider furry community is handling people with a disability? What do you think needs to be done to improve things?
I’d argue it’s a mixed bag, but, a lot of that has to do with just how vastly diverse disabilities as a whole are. Like, even though we are both ‘disabled’, I have a very different set of needs than my friend with cerebral palsy. Even within the Holt-Oram community, the severity of the disability occurs on a wide spectrum, and “accessibility” for us is not a one size fits all by any means. Overall, however, I find most “geek” communities are somewhat better than average concerning things like accessibility, at least in terms of my experience. For example, because of my HOS, I have a very bad heart. I currently have a pacemaker, but it looks like I may need even more “borg parts” or possibly a transplant in the near future. Currently, if I’m left standing up for too long (for me that’s 30 minutes+) I can become very ill from a lack of blood flow to my brain, so being able to sit for a bit is something I legitimately need. I can say that within the sphere of “geekdom” is the one place where I have never received any direct flack for this, and I’m super grateful for that.
The biggest thing that does bother me in geek spaces, however, is getting treated a bit like a zoo animal, or like I’m part of some special club. I’m not “special” – I’m sick, and it sucks, but I’m a survivor and I want to live and engage in my hobbies for as long as I can. I ultimately just want to be treated with respect as a human being. It’s a tough thing to describe to people who haven’t been on the receiving end of the behaviour, but sometimes you will get this specific tone or attitude where you can tell they are trying to be “inclusive” but they’re trying so hard that they’re actually coming across as condescending and rude. I think the solution for this is for group leaders (be it a con, meet, etc) to learn to actively listen to those of us who request disability accommodation. If someone makes a request for accommodation and you feel that’s something you can provide, don’t make a big deal over it; just do it. I can only speak for myself, but, for me, when weird groveling behaviour gets involved after I disclose I’m disabled, it feels a lot like mockery and often leaves me feeling ashamed for asking for something as simple as a chair. I asked for a chair, not a circle of worshippers. White it’s definitely preferable to naked bigotry, I do feel like it’s still an inappropriate way to treat people, especially if you want us to feel comfortable at an event. It’s good to recognise when someone is disabled, but it’s not so good to treat them like that disability is the only thing that defines them.
What does the inclusion of disability in fiction mean to you?
When it specifically comes to fictional characters, this is probably a bit of a spicy take but, to me personally, I’m fairly indifferent. I’m very happy that disabled folks who are into that kind of thing can more easily find the type of narratives they are looking for in this day and age but, for me, I engage in sci-fi and fantasy as a means to escape the painful reality of my life. I used to be a very athletic person in my youth, and losing those abilities in my late 20’s and 30’s has been hard for me, especially knowing that it’s only going to get worse as I age. I use fiction to live vicariously through the characters. This is why Tammy and Jet have cool animal and cyborg powers rather than deformed limbs and catastrophic cardiovascular failure. When it comes to SF/F specifically, I’m more engaged with metaphorical and allegorical explorations of the emotions that surround disability, rather than the disability itself. That’s not to say I don’t like seeing disabled characters in fiction (I do) but you’ll rarely see me picking up a book solely because the protagonist is disabled, as I can find a way to project onto pretty much any character if they are well developed enough.
Where inclusion in fiction does strongly matter to me is the publication of fiction by talented authors who have a disability. I like supporting and reading the perspectives from other authors who are disabled, regardless of whether or not they include their specific disability in their work. That gives me a tangible sense of community, and gives me a means to support others who have also struggled due to physical characteristics that they can not change and did not choose. Talented disabled voices can be brushed under the rug due to our unique struggles with physical health, and I want to hear and support those voices by purchasing, reading, and/or discussing their work. At the end of the day, fictional characters are not real, and, when it comes to disability, I’m more concerned with the work and life experiences of the real disabled human beings behind the words than I am with directly “seeing myself” through a figment.
Do you see a difference between stories written by authors with a disability and authors without, when it comes to writing characters with disabilities?
Generally I do find “own voices” narratives often have a certain undercurrent of authenticity that narratives simply written by allies often lack. This is something I’ve noticed across the board for a large swath of fiction centered on minority characters, by minority writers. There are some experiences that you can’t fully understand unless you have lived them, even if you can find deep empathy for the situation. For example, I found the character AO from Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Noor relatable to a degree that I can only describe as haunting.
This isn’t always the rule though, as, talented writers can (and frequently do!) create wonderful characters whose struggles are outside the scope of the author’s own experiences. For example, a disabled character I adore is Samson Harker from David Marusek’s cyberpunk-esque novel, Counting Heads. As far as I know, Marusek does not have any sort of degenerative disease (nanite-induced or otherwise) but the character of Simon, his struggles with a failing body, his musings about death, etc strongly resonated with me. Likewise, Anne McCaffrey Brainship series feels like the ultimate wish-fulfilment fantasy for me because, oh, what I would do to trade my failing human husk vessel for a badass spaceship body lmao. This veers out of written fiction and into film territory but, Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender is also an excellent example of a well-written character whose creators lack her specific disability.
What do you think is the most important thing for a writer to do when considering how to write characters with a disability?
My best advice is is to always remember the humanity of your character. Their personhood should always come first before their disability status. What do they do, what do they like? Hobbies? What were they like as a kid? What are their core values? There are a myriad of questions to ask, but what I mean by all this is that their only defining trait should never be “they are disabled”. When I think of Toph, the first words I think of to describe her are “disabled” or “blind”, I think of how tough and pragmatic she is, and how I deeply related to her because of those traits. Her disability is important to her character and adds incredible nuance to her as a person, but it’s not her defining trait. If the most interesting thing about your character is their disability, then you may want to rethink how you are writing them. Characters like that, who often exist purely to signal the creator’s inclusive politics, are often how you accidentally fall into dehumanisation and offensive tropes, even if you mean well. There is a certain level of condescending preachiness that comes with stories created for the sole purpose of signalling the author’s/publisher’s politics, and it can come across as not just offensive, but downright dehumanising when you, the disabled person in the audience, are keenly aware that you are only seeing yourself included because the author wants to look like the paragon of virtue, rather than because they actually, truly desire telling an interesting story about someone with a disability. Even if I might appreciate the sentiment, the execution is often lacking, and the execution is the most important aspect of telling a story. Being disabled isn’t inherently political; it just is. I’d rather read something entertaining than something preachy, and when someone like me is specifically the subject of the preachiness, it comes back to feeling like a zoo animal or, worse, an attraction at a carnival side show.
A big tip I have on how to avoid falling into the above trap is that I highly recommend listening to people. Active listening goes a long way in building bridges. If you don’t have that disability yourself, go find people who do, and listen to how they feel about their situation. And, yes, that should include even those whose feelings towards their situation you might disagree with. I’d argue the latter is important even if you are a disabled person creating an “own voices” story, as there can often be quite a diversity of ideas and experiences from within your own little sphere. (For example, there are some disability advocates who absolutely hate McCaffrey’s Brainships. I completely disagree with them, but their perspectives are still interesting and worthy of respect, even if I, personally, see things differently.) If you don’t know anyone who has a disability similar to what you’re writing about, biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs exist and are a wealth of interesting and important information regarding the human experience.
Are there any common failings you see amongst furry fiction?
The biggest hurdle I’ve faced in furry fiction has been the structure of awards and how the biggest one (Ursas) often rewards quantity over quality, especially in terms of written fiction. My opinions on whether quantity even warrants an award aside, quantity can be a very difficult bar for disabled people to meet, but especially for those with progressive illnesses like mine. In the past four weeks, I have had a doctor’s visit of some sort almost every day, except the weekend. That’s exhausting. I do not have the time or energy to be a literature mill, so I have to pick and choose which stories I feel are strong enough to warrant completion. For this reason, I’m confident that my stories are good and worthy of recognition, but that’s a tough thing to achieve when quantity seems to be rewarded above all else. I know rewards do not make the writer, but it can leave you feeling quite sour when you know you’re work will rarely be on a ballot because you couldn’t make dozens of pieces in a year due to your physical condition. Part of the reason these rewards exist is to build community, and the latter can really leave you feeling like you’re being shut out of the community. I would love for the showrunners of the UMA to be more open to making adjustments to how nominations are run. I’ve seen many interesting discussions regarding this (hence why I wish the Ursas would be more open to discussing this matter with the community at large, because it’s clearly a discussion the community wants) but my personal quick fix would be to simply limit nominations so that a single person can only have one work nominated per category. This would open the door for a larger variety of voices to be showcased, while also maintaining a way for those who are more prolific to secure multiple nominations if they are varied in their work, which they typically are.
On the flip side, in terms of including real disabled people in anthologies or publishing their work, I think furry is often a cut above the norm, and I really appreciate that. From my experience, this rings true for most indie writing and publishing circles. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that there is a bigger focus on the artistic side of things rather than maximising mainstream marketability or, worse, appeasing the insensible sensibilities of the suits. I can think of talented furry authors with disabilities off the top of my head without much effort, and I’ve always found that super awesome. Furry writing is a very small, very niche thing, and the fact that I don’t have to wrack my brains to think of talented disabled authors, despite the relatively small size of the community, is a massive plus. I can think of way bigger, older hobby communities that should, in theory, have recognisable disabled voices in their midst, but they don’t. So, I really feel like furry, and the indie publishing world as a whole, does a really great job at including diverse voices and narratives.
What book featuring characters with a disability and/or written by an author with a disability would you most recommend to people?
For furry authors with disabilities, I recommend checking out the works by the late (and dearly missed) K.C. Alpinus (my favorites by her are “The Night the Stars Fell” from Dogs of War II: Aftermath, and the anthology she edited called SOAR) and the short stories by former Guild president, Linnea “LiteralGrill” Capps (“The Glow” from The Electric Sewer is a major favorite of mine).
For non-furry, anything by the aforementioned Nnedi Okorafor is a solid bet. Noor is my favourite, but the Binti series is also excellent.
Additionally, like I said before, while I understand the criticism of them, I personally adore the Brainship series (including the ones not written by McCaffrey) and I definitely recommend it if you’re like me and you’ve frequently entertained “brain in a jar” fantasies regarding yourself.
And, finally, where can we find your works?
You can find my shorts in SPECIES: Otters, BREEDS: Wildcats, and The Haunted Den, all of which can be purchased via Amazon. Currently, Quicksilver can only be purchased from the publisher’s website. Right now I’m editing my very first anthology for Armoured Fox Press themed around lesbian romance, and I’m super excited to show off the authors and stories I’ve selected. (It is still open until the end of August, if anyone reading this would be interested in submitting!)
I will be selling signed copies of all my currently published books at the New Age of Heroes convention in Springfield, MA this coming November, so if you are in the New England area then, please do drop by and say hello!
Furry Writers’ Guild 