February 2019 Dispatch
Kyell Gold
January Recap
If you missed last month’s newsletter, check it out! I talked about my plans for this year, and all the projects I want to work on. I’m pleased to report that Love Match is almost done (maybe a month from being wrapped up) and The War and the Fox is about halfway done (I hope to finish it up in February). So things so far are going along well, and I’d like to be done by the end of February with the War draft so I can send it to the writing retreat I’m going to in mid-March.
In January I went to Further Confusion and did a bunch of panels and hung out at the Sofawolf table and generally had a good time. I got to talk to a bunch of people and sign books and overall it was a very fun time.
For the rest of January, the two weeks we didn’t have people visiting from Further Confusion, I mostly worked on getting a couple things ready that were due at the end of the month. I wrote a foreword for a book that Fred Patten completed before he passed away last November, a review of 100 important books in anthropomorphic literature, and I’m looking forward to that coming out (I’ll let you know). I wrote a conbook story for TFF, the eleventh year in a row I’ve done that, and all of these stories are part of a series about Sean, my red wolf private eye from the award-winning short story “Jacks to Open” (sorry, I am more conscious of the fact that I should talk up my work when I can so yes, “Jacks to Open” won the Ursa Major award back when it came out). In a few years maybe I’ll collect all of them and put them with “Jacks” and write that sequel I’ve been meaning to for a while. Lastly, I wrote a story to submit to ROAR that is another story with Tryk, the main character of my story “Flight” that I posted to my FA page and SoFurry a couple weeks ago (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/30236607/ with cute art by AmonOmega!).
So I got all those stories done, and now I just have the novel to work on. TFF in is late March this year, not February, so I don’t have much to do apart from a getaway weekend with my boys and a Valentine’s dinner. I’m looking forward to a quiet and productive month. Hope yours is the same!
Release dates
Ty Game came out at MFF! The e-book is on all retailers now.
The Tower and the Fox audiobook came out too; you can find it on Audible, Amazon, or iTunes. If you don’t have an Audible account yet, it helps me out a LOT if you use this link to sign up: https://www.audible.com/pd/B07F1YRWLF/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-120139&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_120139_rh_us
I talked to people at MFF about 2019’s release schedule, and here’s my best guess at dates: The forthcoming New Tibet anthology will be out probably at AnthroCon 2019, and the new Dev and Lee book will probably be out later that year, maybe at MFF. Love Match book 3 will likely be around BLFC or AC as well. I’ve also got a story in Sofawolf Press’s New Fables, which will be out early next year.
Appearances in 2019
My full list of upcoming appearances is at http://www.kyellgold.com/contact.html, recently updated (or soon to be updated).
I’ll be at Texas Furry Fiesta in March. Find me there at panels or at the FurPlanet table!
Spotlight: The Rabbit Dies First
https://furplanet.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1018
This anthology was created and edited by my friend and writing group compatriot Ryan Campbell, and it contains a bunch of good stories, and also one by me that is a sequel to my novella The Mysterious Affair of Giles, about the lesbian cook/amateur detective weasel Ellie Stone.
The collection was a lot of fun to write for because it was basically a writing prompt with no other information. The stories can be mystery (like mine), adventure, contemporary, noir, science fiction, etc. I had a great time discovering the different stories and I think you will too.
Here’s the list of authors in the collection: Tym Greene, David Green, Franklin Leo, Jellybean, Mary E. Lowd, Maya Levine, Ocean Tigrox, Sera Kane, Watts Martin, Nathan Ravenwood, Lloyd Yaeger, Taylor Harbin, Nidhi Singh, and Kyell Gold. Give it a look in print or e-book!
Excerpt: To Catch A Thief
Here’s the beginning of the story I wrote for the TFF conbook, and if you can’t make it to TFF then maybe I’ll post the rest of it in the April newsletter.
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Richie took one look at the living room and pulled Sean back, putting his muzzle close to the other red wolf’s and whispering. “No way. Uh uh.”
“You’re the one saying we should get out more, see people, do things. You played D&D in high school and I didn’t even do that.”
“I still can’t believe that.”
“I don’t like dice,” Sean said. “But you should be used to it.”
“We had characters and rolled dice, that’s it. Not…” He gestured toward the living room, the large wooden table covered in sheets of paper and dice, the large butcher paper covering the walls with crudely drawn brickwork on part of it (with small creatures drawn in holes in the wall), trees and bushes on the rest, and the four people sitting around the table.
The lynx at the head of the table behind a brightly painted screen wore a bright blue cloak over a tunic that had clearly been made for a Renaissance fair, and he was the most subtly dressed of the four. To his right, a porcupine wore a studded leather breastplate with shoulder guards and what looked like an old-timey leather football helmet. Next to the porcupine, a large jaguar sported a chainmail shirt over which hung a white cloth with a hand-painted red cross on it. And turning as he led them in was a rat in a purple cloak and cloth pointy hat that kept falling down over his eyes.
“Guys,” Perry the rat said, “this is my ex Sean and his boyfriend Richie.”
The lynx and jaguar said, “Hey,” but the porcupine grunted, “Well met, friends.”
“And this,” Perry continued, to Sean and Richie this time, “is our paladin Maca, our barbarian Fillip, and our GM Alomar.”
The two red wolves raised paws. “Hi,” Sean said. “Thanks for letting us join your game.”
“We’re short players ever since Rob and Letty started dating,” the lynx—Alomar—said. “You guys want their characters or want to start your own?”
“Let’s just dive in,” Richie said. “We’ll take their characters.”
“Told you we shouldn’t have let a girl in the group.” Perry sat down.
“Shut up, Perry,” Maca said. “Letty’s my friend and FYI, Rob’s the one who’s keeping her away. She wanted to come.”
The rat ignored this, pushing paper at Sean and Richie as they sat down. “Here. Richie, you can be Rob’s character. He’s a cleric, a follower of the sun-god Alef.” He squinted. “He’s lawful good, so be—”
“I know what lawful good means.”
Perry waved at the sheet Sean was holding. “That’s Amber, our vixen thief. She’s got—”
“I can read the sheet, Perry, thanks.” Sean glanced at Richie, saw his answering nod, and then the two of them exchanged sheets.
“Sean’s a private investigator,” Richie explained to the others. “Much better lawful good characters. And I’m a tax attorney. So…”
“The point is to role-play,” Perry said, a little sourly, the way he had when Sean didn’t want to do exactly what he did.
“I’m not female and I’m not a fox,” Richie said, “so there’s that for a start.”
Alomar grinned. “All right. Fillip, you want to get the gourmet pretzels Perry brought? Then we can get this started.”
“Gourmet pretzels?” Sean asked while Richie studied his character sheet.
“Oh yeah,” Perry said. “They got like this blend of spices on ‘em and they’re crispy but not hard as a rock. I swear, you try these, you’re off regular pretzels. They cost like three times a normal bag but they’re so worth it.”
The porcupine reappeared in the doorway he’d left through, still talking in his barbarian voice. “I see no provisions. Are you certain you brought some?”
“On the counter.”
“There is nothing on this ‘counter.’”
“What?” Perry jumped out of his seat. “Which one of you took them?”
“Settle down.” Alomar got up and followed Fillip back into the kitchen.
Perry fumed, pacing next to the table. “Those pretzels cost like fifteen bucks! They’re imported!”
“I’m sure they just got misplaced,” Sean said, reaching under the table to pat Richie’s flicking tail and reassure him that Perry wasn’t going to completely freak out. Richie was a steady guy but he didn’t know how to act around people behaving erratically (“then Vegas was a really bad place to set up business,” Sean had told him) and he’d already been a little worried about being around Sean’s ex.
Maca, the jaguar-paladin, looked up. “Yeah,” he said. “Dude. We can buy pretzels. Why would someone steal them?”
“To be dicks!” Perry waved toward Sean. “I get to bring friends and you guys don’t like that so you’re trying to make me look like a jerk.”
“You’re doing a good job of that all by yourself.” Alomar reappeared, followed by Fillip. “I don’t know what happened to the pretzels. I saw you put them on the counter, but they’re not there now.”
“This is bull!” Perry raised his voice, and Richie reached for Sean’s paw under the table. “This is—”
“Settle down.” Sean spoke a little more sharply than he wanted to, for Richie’s sake.
“You!” The rat lit up and pointed at Sean. “You solve crimes and stuff. Right? Okay. Solve this case.”
Questions From YOU
If you’ve got a question about my books or my writing—or anything else you want me to talk about—shoot me an email and I’ll answer it here.
No questions this month so I’ll leave this space blank. Send me your questions for next time!