Harsh the realization that the time for dreams, promises and possibilities has been stolen away, bit by bit, as the years march by in measured step. ‘I will someday…’ they outpace, and eagerness becomes regret.
Hej! I’ve been in the Furry for awhile and may be known as Uncle Oakie (pen name for adult oriented material) BanWynn, or as T’marr, the lion fursuit leather dom. I’ve been writing since was 12 and having some of my poetry published in state and national contests when I was 15-18. Paper Garden was a very small local poetry press that I was a regular contributor to. I ended up as one of the editors there couple years later.
While in the Air Force, I stopped writing. After the Air Force, I was writing, but nothing publishable. I did a couple poetry slams and loved them. I still did not have a strong anchor or focus until I entered the Furry community in 1994.
Fang (Bad Dog Books) bought 3 of my short stories, a non-fiction piece, and a novella in editions 1 and 3.
In 2007 Anthrozine published “Shepherd’s Song”.
My second year at Feral, “Brotherhood of Kings” was included in the conbook.
I did no more serious writing until several years after moving here to Sweden.
I’ve had 7 stories and poems published under other names since then.
I had a bad stroke a year ago that was centered in the language area of my brain. My left side was paralyzed for a happily short period. It killed part of the language area and damaged a significantly larger area around it. I refused to allow my writing ability to be stolen by a tiny scab lodged in a tiny vein. I went back to writing, starting with 100 poems in about 2 months. (Some of them are actually decent. Can you say ‘hypermanic episode’?)
My poems about mental illness, sexual abuse and rape in childhood brought a lot of people out of hiding long enough to say what they needed said. Now, I am working on collecting poems and trying to find a system to catalog them. The goal is to have a book published containing the poetry of survivors of childhood sexual abuse presented in a linked series, one logically following the next.
I have returned to fiction with the help of software designed for people with dyslexia or brain damage and from my husband, Snout. I have the best flash (under 1750 words) that I have every written in the edit ‘1 week wait’ folder and am working on three novels… bouncing back and forth helps avoid some stroke effects. I don’t know how much I am producing, but I am feeling like a writer again.
I enjoy a mixed world of human and anthros in my writing.
See ya in the trenches,
Uncle Oakie
Furry Writers’ Guild 