Today I’m welcoming Bill Kieffer to the blog to talk about life, writing, and his latest book. I’m fairly sure I’ve never read Furry genre books before, but I’m intrigued.
Interview
Welcome! I’m always up for something outside the usual genre fare. How and why did you choose your genre?
My genre is Furry. Which sounds like kids stuff, because talking animals, right?
But it’s actually more than that, it’s allegorical SF and Fantasy that allows me to explore privilege and transformation. I can talk about racism, sexism, religious fissures, ableism, and all sorts of important issues without stealing other people’s own voices. I’m a white male and I don’t get out much… if I try to write a story about a black lesbian in the projects overlooking the wealth and the unattainable status of the Met Opera house… am I going to get it right? Maybe, but probably not, despite having grown up poor, despite being a bisexual, despite learning a lot about opera late in life, I am likely to make a fatal flaw in my thought experiment, and the real versions of the people I imagine will be offended. I might end up doing them a disservice, despite my well-meaning aims… I learned that I need to let the people that know that life better than I tell that story.
With Furry, I can dissolve the things I might to say about that giant apartment complex on Amsterdam Ave behind the Met and Big Apple Circus… people literally feet away from the Best and the Whatever You Want to Call Big Apple Circus… this is everything that I love and hate about Manhattan, you turn the corner and you are in another world. I can concentrate on the conflict, the dichotomy, the tease, the microaggressions, and the social commentary of it all by applying an SF/Fantasy filter to it all.
If I write about a female Gecko I’m on a level playing field. I can build the world from scratch and concentrate on the issues I know we’ll enough to talk about and imply the rest. If I do it right, the reader will infer other issues they are aware of and build their own world while reading.
That’s fascinating! My son is involved in the YA furry community, and I see a lot of the same feelings there. It definitely levels the playing field. Talking animals: bringing the world together, eh?
Moving on, you do write in a lesser-known genre. What is the hardest part of publishing?
Imposter Syndrome. It kicks in as soon as the afterglow of joy fades. There’s a certain point between acceptance and editing that I honestly believe that the editor made a mistake. I only wrote X drafts and I know I left words out. They are going to realize that I’m not a nice person and that they won’t want my name associated with theirs. I reread the acceptance letter, double check that I replied. There might be tears. I watch my other writer friends deal with publishers folding and vanishing… and, so help me, I might even feel left out. My brain hates me.
I’m from New Jersey. I think there’s this regional thing not to trust a good thing unless there’s a little piss and vinegar poured on it. The only thing that vanquishes it is when an editor tells me to fix things. That makes me happy. When an editor tells me that there’s just some proofreading that needs to be done, it makes me unhappy. I start thinking that maybe they hadn’t read my work. So, I’m also an ungrateful snot… and I know I shouldn’t be. I need my publishers and editors, because—obviously—with these feeling and doubts I’d never be good at that self-publishing thing.
Still, my ego has spurs. I feel confident about my work, intellectually. I know I am good at the craft. It’s just moments when I doubt that are the hard part.
I can certainly relate to that doubt, and I agree about finding it suspect if the editor doesn’t have much to suggest. On a related note, are there any types of scene you find hard to write (action, love, death, etc.)?
I apparently have trouble writing about love…except in terribly, horrific situations. I worry what that says of me, but I have been working in that. Part of that, I think, is complete repulsion to cliches, but that’s not all of it. Most of my issue appears to be a lack of editorial editing, as they say on Project Runway. So, I’m working on that. I’ve got a novel project with loving characters that I’m working on. I’ve written two short stories with them: one will be appearing in the upcoming Roar 9 from Bad Dog Books. It’s probably more slice of life than a romance novel, but I’m not done with them yet.
I love slice of life! I’m not much of a romance reader, though I do like when it’s woven into a larger plot. Sounds like that’ll be a great read.
Okay, time for Word Sprints! Plotter or pantser?
Pantser, mostly. When I write my Noir, I plot the mystery so I’m not pulling things out of my ass and cheat the reader.
Coffee or tea?
Tea. I have a tea queue. I’m currently drinking Vanilla Caramel Chai.
What’s a charity/cause you support?
JBJ’s Soul Kitchen. https://www.jbjsoulkitchen.org/volunteer I also volunteer for the NJ LGBT Chamber of Commerce. http://www.njlgbtchamber.org/ I am neither a chef nor a business person, but I think these things are important.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope your new book finds its perfect audience, and feel free to stop by any time when you have a new release.
About the Book
Title: Cold Blood: Fatal Fables
Date: May 7, 2018
Publisher: Jaffa Books
Length: 90k words
Categories: Violence, M/m, m/f, bi, mystery, noir, furry, gay, lgbt
Synopsis
Welcome to Aesop’s World, a world of allegory and violence.
It’s a dark world where love and redemption have a cost that can only be measured in blood and violence. It’s just like your own Earth, except darker… furrier… scalier. There are no humans. If there were ever humans, they are just the myths now of strange religions and cultures.
The place to be is New Amsterdam, where its five boroughs form a familiar cityscape in the Independent and United States of America. Every race, every species co-mingle here with a tolerant surface of live and let live. At least, until you cross the wrong person. Rubbing someone’s fur the wrong way might get you killed.
In these six stories, you’ll explore different stories of love and violence across different decades of alternate furry history.
Prohibition: The world is full of conspiracies, syndicates, and crackpot cults. Cops have to be tough. Shepard is as hard headed and as hard hearted as they come. He has just one soft spot, an impossible love for Lynne Black. When Lynne calls to say her youngest boy was kidnapped, he drops everything to get the boy back. The boy that should have been his.
PostWar: Brooklyn Blackie was scarred by the things he saw in the war, including the death camps of Reptiles. It haunts him and he buries that pain in sex and violence with both genders of any species willing to lift a tail for him. He’s bisexual in a time when it doesn’t even have a name… and he’s not even a very good detective, but he’s never let that stop him before.
The Outrageous Eighties: Rap stars like St. George and Dr. Ice, are beginning to make millions in record deals… and if they don’t kill each other, it might be the start of a new dynasty.
Purchase Links
Jaffa Books | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
About the Author
Bill Kieffer was born in Jersey City, NJ.
He never fully recovered.
A brain injury at an early age left him with some mild issues and just enough aphasia to be amusing at parties. He tries to be very open about these. He doesn’t drink, having the bare minimum of inhibitions to begin with. He also tends to describe himself in negatives.
He’s happily married to a woman who encouraged him to discover and explore his sexuality. She also encourages him to keep on his meds. They both dabble in writing erotica. He is bisexual but does not stray. She is straight and the relationship is only open in the sense that he tells her everything (they blame rumors to the contrary on his aphasia).
When he is not looking in the mirror, Bill Kieffer is actually a 6 foot tall gray anthropomorphic draft horse that types as Greyflank. He is a member of the Furry Writers Guild and has recently published short stories in several Furry anthologies put out by Fur Planet. Past writing credits include comic books like “Billy Joe Van Helsing: Red Neck Vampire Hunter” and “Great Morons in History, the Dan Quayle Bio.”
His first book, The Goat: Building The Perfect Victim, by was published by Red Ferret Press in 2016. He can be found, once a month, bothering indie publishers about what’s on their bookshelves. “Shelfies” believes that a bookshelf tells more about person then a mere Selfie.
Social Media
Thank you for having me!
You’re welcome here any time! 🙂