New story day! And it’s perfect for pride month 🙂
Story: The Application of Lycanthropy as a Novel Treatment for Gender Dysphoria
Published in: The Voice of Dog [free] as well as Dudes Rock! [forthcoming]
Length: <1,000 words
Brief synopsis: A trans man encounters a monster in the woods and discovers a unique alternative to HRT.
How the story came to be: This high-level concept is the same one for my current novel WIP, and I wanted to try writing it in a contemporary setting!
PUBLISHING THE STORY
Relative Confidence Level Before Submitting: 5-ish. I knew it would be a hard sell because I do not expect non-trans people to really understand the gender euphoria that can be triggered by the strangest things. But there had to be some queer markets that would get it, right…?
Rejections before finding a home: 40, which is the most for any piece of mine! It got quite a few personalized rejections, and they were of the “we loved this and it made it to the final round, but…” sort. So, yeah, it took a hot minute to find a place.
The eventual home: So The Voice of Dog of dog is actually a reprint! Even though it came out first haha. The rights for Dudes Rock! were non-exclusive, and I knew this piece would do great in TVOD’s pride month special. So I’ll give a bit of info about both places.
Dudes Rock! is an upcoming anthology by Prismatica Press, focusing on “queer masculinity.” And that’s what this story is! So it fit in quite well, as you can guess. I’m super happy that it ended up at a queer press in a queer anthology.
The Voice of Dog podcasts furry stories. I’ve had a couple stories reprinted there, and this is no different. A werewolf, in itself, is not a furry, technically, but they’re close enough and lots of furries like them. Plus the “yay I’m doggo :)” is something furries would really like!
I got a batch of info on reprints coming out in about a week, which will be exclusive to my email list. You can sign up for that over on the sidebar, if you feel like it! I’ll see y’all soon!
