It has been a rather busy year, with 12 short stories submitted to various publications.

I spent most of the first half of 2025 furiously writing, using my anger about the state of the world to fuel my productivity. Most of my stories have developed a political edge and up until June, I felt I was on a roll. Things were dialled back a little in the second half of the year, but this was largely due to time pressures. November and December were reasonably good months though.

I’ve written and submitted more stories this year than I ever have, but this means I’ve suffered more rejections too. This is inevitable whenever you submit to anthologies, but this did knock my confidence, particularly during the Autumn.

In April, I joined my first-ever furry writing group and we still meet on Discord once a month. I have found this very useful in terms of honing ideas and improving my stories, while I hope the feedback I have provided to the other members has been useful too. It has quickly become one of the highlights of the month as I am learning so much from my fellow writers. One example is that I think I’ve become a better horror writer this year as I have a greater appreciation of how to build suspense.

I have had four stories published in anthologies this year, all of which came in the final six months. This makes it my best year thus far in terms of published works. ‘Would?’ was published in Wild Hearts in July. This was followed by ‘Snapshots’ in the Summer 2025 edition of #OHMURR a few weeks later. ‘Keelhauled’ appeared in the Furvana Conbook in September, while my first-ever story for the Furry Historical Fiction Society, ‘Back to the Molly House’, saw the light of day in December in The Wideness of the World anthology.

In addition to this, I also had two stories feature on The Voice of Dog podcast. The first, ‘Scooped Up‘, comes from the Work “Fur” Hire anthology that was released last year. The second was a standalone piece called ‘Votive‘, which I wrote for October’s ‘Ghost of Dog’ series.

In September, I started working for Fenris Publishing as a freelance editor and I have learned a great deal about the publishing process as a result. I’ve edited a novel alongside some comic books for the first time, and have realised that this is what I would love to do as a career. I’m hoping to pursue this strongly in 2026 so if you’re looking for editing or proofreading services, please drop me a line.

I have run a few panels at furry conventions in 2025, specifically at Scotiacon and ConFuzzled, and I’m hoping to contribute to more next year. I’ve also kept this website up-to-date and have created some new business cards with which I’m hoping to showcase my writing going forward. At the start of the year, Ry helped me get the site into shape too.

SoFurry has been down for nearly half a year now, and I am wondering whether it will still function as the fandom’s primary writing website when it returns in mid-January. While FurAffinity has improved its upload procedure for writers, it still isn’t particularly great, and my fear is our audiences have drifted elsewhere. Only time will tell on that front, but I haven’t published that many stories online recently as a result. Fear of AI scraping has been another main reason.

I have been reading an average of 2-3 books per month, which makes me feel reasonably satisfied. I’d like to be able to read more, but time constraints always impede. Hopefully, I can increase this in the new year. I’ve also tried to write more book reviews over the course of the last 12 months, with moderate success on that front too.

So all in all it has been a pretty decent year. I feel I’m starting to establish myself as a furry author a little more and while I still have a long way to go, I’m happy with how things are going. I’ve also enjoyed interacting with the wonderful writing community in the furry fandom.

Thank you to everyone who has supported my writing over the last 12 months, particularly those who have read my work and provided invaluable feedback. Thanks also to those who have read and enjoyed my stories. May I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.