[Alopex] I am happy to announce that production on Heat #10 is well underway and that we plan to release it at Anthrocon this summer. As usual, the stories and comics come from a mix of new and old contributors, and they include relationships of a variety of sexual orientations.

Stories:

• "Best of the Best" by Franklin Leo, illustrated by ShinigamiGirl
• "The Delicate Game" by Dark End, illustrated by Dark Natasha
• "Flight Path" by Huskyteer, illustrated by Anyare
• "Pushing" by TrianglePascal, illustrated by Kacey Miyagami
• "Repaid in Silver" by Kandrel, illustrated by Toulouse

Poems:

• "The Fangs of Love" by Bears from Arcadia!, illustrated by Stigmata
• "In Season" by Tempe O'Kun, illustrated by Katie Hofgard

Comics:

• "I Miss You, Too" by 333456
• "Isis" by Keovi & Kyell Gold
• "Mail Bonding" by Blotch
• "Rough Day" by Donryu

This volume's cover will be by Serene Wyatt, and we'll have ads by Sefeiren and Blue_Panther. The volume wraps up with an Afterglow Husky by EclipseWolf.

Although we had discussed making this tenth volume an all-color publication and we considered delaying its release until fall, in the end, we decided to keep Heat #10 in its traditional black-and-white format, and we will be releasing it on schedule (barring any unforeseen complications). The Teagan half of Blotch is responsible for convincing me that we actually could keep this volume on schedule, despite having a delayed start, and has taken over management of all things artistic. For editing, Dark End stayed on after his work on Hot Dish to help out with some of the stories, and Jeff Eddy has returned as editor for the others. I am greatly indebted to all three for their roles in keeping Heat #10 manageable and on schedule!

(We do have plans for expanding Heat into more colorful realms, but we have moved those ideas into another project, to be announced at a later date.)

Can't wait until Anthrocon!

We're pleased to announce that we now have a distributor in Australia. Fans of our publications in Australia and New Zealand will have a much cheaper shipping option than ever before!

Australian Fandom Conventions, the people who bring you ConFurgence (formerly MiDFur), have opened up an online shop at ausfancons.bigcartel.com. Having just launched the site, they are currently carrying only a limited number of our titles. However, they are happy to hear what other titles you may be interested in! Let them know via their contact form, and if there is enough interest, they may expand their offerings the next time we send them a shipment.

Spring is finally here in Minnesota! We feel like celebrating by putting everything that isn't already discounted on our site on sale for 20% off. Our current sales are:

Ursa Major Nominees

• Flight of the Godkin Griffin (swp.im/p/fotgg now $14.95)
• Green Fairy (swp.im/p/gf, nominated for Rukis's cover art, now $14.95)
• The Nordguard Card Game (swp.im/p/ngcard now $19.95)

Furry Writers' Guild Book of the Month for April

• Hot Dish (swp.im/p/hd now $13.95)

Everything Else

20% off You must use the discount code "APR2013" at checkout to claim this discount rate.

[Alopex] Continuing from our previous installment about Hot Dish (swp.im/p/hd $17.95), we move on to the stories in the latter half of the collection.

A Monster and a Gentleman by Lady Chastity Chatterley is a beauty-and-beast story. There is no denying that. But what makes it stand out is its clever variations from the traditional tale, told with a narrative voice befitting such a fairy tale. Fergus, the monster in this tale, is truly kind in his heart and his demeanor, but he must learn to live with the fact that the people around him treat him instinctively as a beast solely based on his appearance. His fully human twin brother is his visual opposite; he is also Fergus’s opposite in personality. The two provide plenty of opportunities for the reader to ponder what it is that makes a monster truly monstrous.

Dream a Little Dream of Me is Kandrel’s second appearance in this anthology, in a setting quite different from the first. The story centers around Curri, a mink living in a world where Sweet Dreams Units provide computer-enhanced dreaming experiences. Only, in Curri’s case, his SDU seems faulty and even his waking reality starts to glitch out around him. The reasons why his worlds are misbehaving are surprising, for both the mink and the reader, and they pull together the story nicely in the end.

On top of that, the story has one of my favorite characters in the entire collection: Ricardo, a gecko and the local electronics repairman who Curri goes to for various services. One of his services is presented in perhaps more detail than is necessary to advance the plot, but he is such a fun character that I couldn’t bear having any less of him in the story.

A Secret Place by Dwale takes place in an intriguing setting: an ancient greenhouse operation, nestled in a forgotten mountain valley, growing flowers for sale to a much more modern and technologically advanced civilization nearby. Ipomoea, A young stallion from the city has come to the farmstead to help his wheelchair-bound aunt tend to the flowers. Although we see little of his city life, we learn about this larger world through the contrasts he sees between it and this little pocket of solitude in which he finds himself. For example, in the city, knowledge about nuclear power is heavily controlled and limited to those in the uppermost castes, whereas in the country, remnants of the previous human inhabitants’ nuclear technology (such as what powers the greenhouses) are viewed as somewhat mystical and must be maintained by wandering tech-seers. Such hints at a larger world outside the story give the setting depth and richness, deftly revealing just enough to color the story without making the story feel incomplete.

Within this setting we see Ipomoea coming of age and starting to question the assumptions about his life’s direction that have been defined by his caste. He is guided along by his aunt’s patient and tender lessons in floriography, the secret language of flower arrangements. Floriography is rarely found in the Heat slushpile, and this story stood out because of its particularly skillful incorporation of the trope into Ipomoea’s personal growth.

In Dance With Me by Tack Otter we follow Rowdy, an Australian shepherd pianist and his performance partner, Ben, a non-anthropomorphic crow with a natural talent for dance, as they prepare for a major talent competition. It’s nerve-wracking enough that the stakes are so high in the competition, but Rowdy’s focus is further distracted by his internal struggle over who he cares for most vs. the expectations of his family (and society in general). Musical themes run throughout the story, even when the music isn’t playing, in metaphors and other turns of phrase that reveal how deeply music runs through Rowdy’s life. The story also stands out in how it explores the ways in which a bird and a more humanoid character might express their love for each other in bed.

What Would You Do if I’m Not What I’m Supposed to Be? by Arcane Reno explores one of the fears that is increasingly common in today’s age of internet communications: what if the person who only knows you online doesn’t like who you are in real life? Marcus, an African Wild Dog in real life, plays Kraid, an anthro dragon in Echos of Myth, an online RPG that is fully immersive via a port implanted into players’ nervous systems and a Visband worn over the eyes. His game partner is another male dragon named Daigen, and Marcus has yet to reveal to him his real identity, including the reason why this virtual reality is so much more significant for him than it is for most players. When Daigen reveals that he hass moved to Marcus’s town in order to be able to hang out in real life, Marcus is faced with many questions that he has been avoiding.

Even though Marcus has his flaws — he is easy to find fault even in people who mean well — he is an engaging character who we want to succeed and who we want to find love. He has an entertaining relationship with his mother, whose tough love is perfectly suited for his situation, and he’s a consummate geek who lets fly with the nerdiest of references at the most opportune moments.

As the longest story with the longest title, it is a fitting tale for the anchor position in this anthology. But more than that, it ends on an uplifting and positive note that is the perfect way to close out this diverse collection of stories.

[Alopex] Now that Hot Dish (swp.im/p/hd $17.95) has been officially launched, I wanted to write up a little behind-the-scenes article to talk a little more about the stories in this collection and what it was about them that made them stand out from the rest of the submissions. It ended up not so “little,” so here’s the first half!

Hot Dish evolved from Heat, our magazine-format anthology of stories, poetry and comics about romantic and erotic relationships of all sexual orientations. While we sometimes publish stories longer than 10,000 words in Heat, it is rare, and we don’t print more than one such story per volume in order to keep the overall content balanced. As a result, some years we are faced with the difficult task of choosing which of multiple good, but long, stories to include in the forthcoming volume. It is not simply a decision of which is subjectively “best,” but also which of the really good long stories best complements the other content in the volume. Starting with Heat #7 we began holding on to the other good, long stories we’d rejected and kept in touch with their authors in hopes that we might come up with a venue to publish them as well. After Heat #8 we were well on our way to creating a novel-length collection, similar in size to our previous anthology X, edited by Kyell Gold, so with Heat #9 we ran a parallel call for submissions specifically for Hot Dish to fill out the remainder of the collection. In the end, we came up with nine stories and over 140,000 words to fill a nice meaty anthology.

Hot Dish starts out with Seducing the Sky by Kandrel. I wanted Hot Dish to kick off with a story with a strong, engaging introduction that would grab readers and pull them in. This story does just that by dropping you immediately in the middle of a space battle (null-space, technically). We quickly meet Taj, a tiger, and Raptor, the intelligent, weaponized spaceship built for fighting in null-space, and within which Taj had been neurologically and biologically linked for decades. Then, just as quickly, we find Taj alone on a planet of technologically primitive otters who are in a bloody land dispute with their neighbors. What impressed me about this story was how well conceived the disparate worlds of star fighting tigers and poison-spear-throwing otters were. They were rich with subtleties, such as the fact that the tigers who, despite their technological advances, relied on a verbal litany to remember and pass on their military wisdom. I was also impressed by how Kandrel used the parallels between the otters’ telepathic abilities and the tigers’ neural connections with their ships to enable communication between these vastly different species from very different worlds.

The second story, Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre by Huskyteer, brings us back to a much more contemporary setting in modern-day England. It is a story about the perils of surrogate fatherhood: Jess, a female clouded leopard asks Max, her male wolf best friend since childhood to be the father to the child she hopes to have with her partner Cate, a female wolf. The process of artificial insemination is simple enough, but the implications for their lives and their relationships are not. Max’s new boyfriend, Simon, is just coming off a messy breakup with another guy who had a child of his own through an ex-wife, and as such, Max is hesitant to bring up his own potential fatherhood with him. On top of all these complexities floats Huskyteer’s sense of humor, interjected here and there, but brought to slapstick levels when it comes time for Max to play his very important role. (Huskyteer now wishes she’d thought of using the phrase “slapstick” to describe that episode first!)

(A side note for fellow writers and editors who might be curious: normally we standardize our editing on American English, but because Huskyteer’s story is so obviously British, we left in British spellings and terminology to retain the flavor—or rather flavour—of the setting. However, we enforced American rules for things like punctuation, which we felt would be more likely to stand out as errors to our readers, rather than local colour.)

Third in the list is The Evening’s Festivities by Faora Meridian. It is a tale about deception on multiple levels: Nelin, a Coyote thief, deceives Lord Litanno Consalius in order to attend his gala ball and abscond with the host’s most prized possession; Lady Lucia Consalius, daughter of the host, deceives Nelin with secrets hidden in her boudoir while distracting him from his errand; the secretive and powerful client who paid Nelin for his services deceives the thief when he comes to collect his pay; and Lord Consalius in the end deceives Nelin into getting caught by letting him believe that his secretive comings and goings have not been observed. I must be deceptive, in my own way, to avoid spoiling the story’s surprises by revealing further details!

In The Moment at Eternity by Dark End, we are transported to a future Earth where humans have engineered metas—human-animal creations with short lives but high libidos to cater to their human masters’ sexual desires. When a cruise ship sinks, leaving Callie, a human female bartender, and Aion, a Black Labrador meta, lone survivors on a remote stretch of Alaskan beach, the rapidly approaching end of Aion’s life compounds Callie’s difficulties in surviving their ordeal. Through the course of their time together, she learns about meta’s lives and comes to appreciate the implications of her own species’ meddling with life. The story stands out from others in which furries are human-constructed sex slaves by the emotional and cultural depth of the world that Dark End has built. It also stands out because of the complex non-linear narrative that sends the reader forwards and backwards through Callie’s life, revealing her personal journey in a way that’s initially disorienting, but which builds on itself to a satisfying conclusion.

Tune in next time when I talk about the stories in the second half of the anthology: A Monster and a Gentleman by Lady Chastity Chatterley, Dream a Little Dream of Me by Kandrel, A Secret Place by Dwale, Dance With Me by Tack Otter, and What Would You Do if I’m Not what I’m supposed To Be? by Arcane Reno.

We are proud to announce that three of our products are in the running for the 2012 Ursa Major Awards: Flight of the Godkin Griffin by M.C.A. Hogarth, the Nordguard Card Game by Tempe O’Kun and Blotch, and Rukis's cover art for Green Fairy by Kyell Gold.

We have put Flight of the Godkin Griffin and Green Fairy on sale for $14.95 and the Nordguard Game on sale for $19.95 through the end of Ursa Majors voting on May 15th.

Also, we have put Hot Dish up for sale a few days early as long as we were in working on the website.

We will not be processing orders until after we returned from FWA, March 20.

Due to the number of responses we got from our Divisions hardcover announcement, we have decided to reprint the Isolation Play hardcovers. We have put them up for pre-order on our website (although they will not be ready for several weeks), with a special shipping option to allow those who have already placed orders for the other books to add the Isolation Play hardcover to their orders for no additional shipping charge.

Please see our blog for additional details.

Two exciting events are coming together into one confusing combination of news and instructions! "Divisions", the third in the novel series about Dev and Lee by Kyell Gold, is being made available for pre-order on our website, and orders placed by January 9th will be signed by Kyell Gold himself. We are also enabling pre-orders on our entire catalog for pick-up at Further Confusion 2013, providing free shipping for orders from our entire catalog to those who will be attending the convention.

Divisions Pre-Orders and Signing

Both hardcover (swp.im/p/div_hc) and softcover (swp.im/p/div) editions of Divisions are now available for purchase on our website. Copies of both editions pre-ordered by January 9 will be signed by Kyell. Hardcovers pre-ordered by January 9 will be both signed and numbered. (Un-numbered, un-signed copies will be available for purchase at the convention and on our website after the pre-order period, while supplies last.)

Orders for pick-up at Further Confusion must be placed by Wednesday, January 9 to reserve your copy (and to avoid the long first-day lines and worries about whether we'll sell out). Pre-orders not for pick-up at Further Confusion will be shipped out via standard USPS Priority and International Priority mail the Monday and/or Tuesday before Further Confusion (January 14 & 15). Pre-orders to be shipped may be made after January 9, but these are not guaranteed to be signed.

Divisions features more great art by Blotch on the cover and interior pages.

We still have hardcover copies of Out Of Position available for purchase on our website. Isolation Play hardcovers are no longer available on our website*, but a small number will be available for purchase at Further Confusion. (These will not be available for pre-order.)

Further Confusion At-Con Pick-Up

Pre-orders for pick-up at Further Confusion 2013 will be taken through Wednesday, January 9. Orders must be placed and paid for by this date. The pre-order and pick-up process will be the same as in previous years:

To Order:

• Add items to your cart.
• When checking out, select the "At-Convention Pick-Up" shipping option.
• If you choose the "Check or Money Order" payment option, your payment must reach us by January 9. You may send us funds via PayPal to sales@sofawolf.com for the full amount of the order.
• Print out a copy of your receipt and bring it with you to Further Confusion.

To Pick Up:

• Come to our booths #4 & #5 in the Dealer's Room, preferably before the last day of the con.
• Show us a copy of your order and photo ID matching the name on the order.
• We'll ask for your signature to confirm you've picked up your order, and then you'll get your loot!
• If your plans change and you need someone to pick up your order for you, please contact us at sales@sofawolf.com with the name of the person authorized to pick up your order. (They must provide photo ID matching the name you give us.)

Thank you, and we hope that you enjoy Divisions and/or Further Confusion!

^* If you are interested in purchasing Isolation Play in hardcover, but will not be at Further Confusion, please drop us a line at sales@sofawolf.com. If we get enough interest, we might consider doing another print run of this title in hardcover.

Time for another update to our rolling holiday sale! This time, we're adding a couple of novel series: Ursula Vernon's Black Dogs #1 and #2 for general readers, and Kyell Gold's Out Of Position and Isolation Play for mature readers. All are 25% off at $14.95 through December 21.

Our sale so far:

• Black Dogs Vol. 1 (swp.im/p/bd1-se) and Black Dogs Vol. 2 (swp.im/p/bd2) by Ursula Vernon, $14.95 each (normally $19.95)
• Out of Position (swp.im/p/oop) and Isolation Play (swp.im/p/ip) by Kyell Gold, $14.95 each (normally $19.95)
• The Blood Jaguar by Michael H. Payne swp.im/p/bljag, $13.95 (normally $15.95)
• Flight of the Godkin Griffin by M.C.A. Hogarth swp.im/p/fotgg, $13.95 (normally $17.95)
• Nordguard: Across Thin Ice by Tess Garman and Teagan Gavet softcover swp.im/p/ng-ati & hardcover swp.im/p/ng-ati_hc, 25% off: $14.95 & $29.95 (normally $19.95 & $39.95)
• Prydwen: Gods & Monsters by Lynn Hogan softcover swp.im/p/prd-1 & hardcover swp.im/p/prd-1-hc 25% off: $14.95 & $29.95 (normally $19.95 & $39.95)
• Digger by Ursula Vernon, all 6 volumes $15 each (normally $18.95)

Holiday Shipping Dates

We've updated our calendar with dates for Christmas shipping. These are all the USPS suggested dates for Priority and Priority International Mail, minus one day to give us time to pack orders.

Today is the final day to place orders for shipment in time for Christmas delivery for more remote international destinations: Asia/Pacific Rim, Australia/New Zealand, Mexico, and all APO/FPO/DPO addresses except for AE Zip 093. The next deadline is Wednesday the 12th for Canada, the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East. Orders for delivery within the United States have until Thursday the 20th.

For the past five years, the Australian convention MiDFur has been inducting people (and entities) into their “Furry Hall of Fame.” They have honored pioneering writers Paul Kidd and Goldfur, archivist Fred Patten, performer 2 the Ranting Gryphon, Anthrocon, cartoonists Stan Sakai and Jenner, convention chairman CynWolfe, and videographer Big Blue Fox.

This year, Sofawolf Press was honored to be inducted alongside furry fandom's original comic creator Steve Gallaci. The ceremony began with Jenner and Paul Kidd introducing Steve, presenting his background not only as creator of the seminal comic Albedo, but also as a publisher of other furry comics at the time. His work was the focus around which the furry fandom crystallized and we were delighted to see him honored in this way.

Steve gave a very warm, humble speech thanking everyone for the honor. He said very graciously that the best thing to come from his comic was seeing the fandom grow, seeing so many people inspired to create their own works. Which was great because that’s how we feel as well.

Uncle Kage then took the stage to present the award to Sofawolf. He talked about some of his experience with a larger publisher and then about how important it was for the furry fandom to have its own press—by furries and for furries—and how Sofawolf had not only filled that role, but done it with professionalism and quality consistently over the years.

Hearing this in the follow-up to Steve's introduction was quite moving and gave us a perspective we don't often get. When we go about the day-to-day business of Sofawolf Press, it's easy to get lost in details, to obsess over the popularity of any particular project we're working on. We know that people like the things we do because they continue to buy them, but we rarely get the chance to hear what our work means to people in a larger context.

So it was in a slightly emotional state that we took the stage and the microphone. We thanked the panel for the honor (honour, really, since we’re in Australia), and talked a little about the vision Sofawolf Press was founded on: that the furry fandom was producing work that deserved to be presented to the world in a professional way. And the best reward for the work we did, we said, was that we were proven right, that the fandom continues to produce quality stories and art that we are proud to publish. We are amazed everywhere we go to see the strong, energetic, creative community, and we are always thankful for their support and enthusiasm. We closed by saying that we hoped they would keep creating and that we looked forward to publishing them for another decade or more.

The award itself is lovely, a tribute to how seriously the committee takes the Hall of Fame. But it was the real emotion in the ceremony that struck home to us the most, a reminder that the work we do means something. By recognizing the quality in the work produced by the fandom, we have encouraged others to create at that level, and they have responded beyond anything we could have imagined. We are delighted to keep publishing, and we only hope to be able to keep up with the furry fandom as it grows to newer and greater heights.

Time for an update about our Holiday sales, as well as a bit of downtime for maintenance.

Holiday Sales

We are placing new products on sale every few days for the remainder of the holiday season. Please watch our @SofawolfPress Twitter account for updates! The sales are cumulative, with all ending on December 21st or later. Our sales thus far include:

• NEWEST: The Blood Jaguar by Michael H. Payne swp.im/p/bljag, $13.95 (normally $15.95)
• Flight of the Godkin Griffin by M.C.A. Hogarth swp.im/p/fotgg, $13.95 (normally $17.95)
• Nordguard: Across Thin Ice by Tess Garman and Teagan Gavet softcover swp.im/p/ng-ati & hardcover swp.im/p/ng-ati_hc, 25% off: $14.95 & $29.95 (normally $19.95 & $39.95)
• Prydwen: Gods & Monsters by Lynn Hogan softcover swp.im/p/prd-1 & hardcover swp.im/p/prd-1-hc 25% off: $14.95 & $29.95 (normally $19.95 & $39.95)
• Digger by Ursula Vernon, all 6 volumes $15 each (normally $18.95)

Shipping Dates For The Holidays

The recommended shipping date for delivery to Africa and South/Central America has passed, but there is still time to have us send gifts to your friends in time for Christmas across most of the rest of the globe! Please check out the USPS Holiday Shipping and Mailing Dates for when to place your orders for international and domestic gift delivery. We ship strictly Priority Mail and International Priority Mail, which makes figuring out dates simple. Please subtract a couple days from those listed by USPS to give us time to pack and ship your orders by these dates.

Website Downtime For Maintenance

Our website will go down for up to four hours the night of Tuesday, December 4th, starting around 10:00 PM EST (7:00 PM PST). The site should be down for no more than four hours. The downtime is for our host's data center to make upgrades for power and environmental infrastructure to increase redundancy.

Did you survive the insane Black Friday sales? Or did you avoid them completely? Either way, you can now sit back and enjoy a lazy three days of Early Holiday Sales from Sofawolf Press! We're offering 20% off everything in our catalog that isn't already on sale, now through Cyber Monday, November 26. So brew some tea, mull some cider or whip up some cocoa, and sit back to peruse our catalog, then take your sweet old time to place your order...just as long as you complete it by the end of the day on Monday!*

Coupon Code: NOVA1220

To get your discount, enter the above coupon code at the "Payment Information" step of the checkout process. The amount of the discount will be displayed under the "Billing Information" section of the "Order Confirmation" page. Please remember that the 20% discount applies only to products that are not already on sale.
 

* For those of you on the American West Coast, please complete your orders before 9:00 PM on Monday the 26th, because our web server tracks dates in Eastern Time.

We are happy to announce the release of our second printing of the Nordguard Card Game. The first printing was incredibly popular and sold out quicker than we had anticipated. We got a lot of great feedback on the game from those of you who were the first to play it, including both praise and opportunities for improvement. We took those comments seriously, and for the second printing we incorporated a number of your suggestions to make the game even better.

This second printing is basically the same game as the first — it has all the same cards as the first round — but we've corrected typos, added some extra information, and adjusted the design of the cards to simplify sorting one type from another. We've also improved the rules as well as the box construction and design.

You may have noticed that we also adjusted the price of the card game to $24.95. When we first released it, we had no idea how well it would sell, especially to gaming fans who had never heard of the Nordguard comic, so we played it safe and priced the decks at barely above their production cost. This helped move our stock, but it was not a price we could support long term. At that price we could not afford to sell them through other distributors, including brick-and-mortar game stores. Now that we are confident in the quality of the product relative to other professionally-produced games, and now that we have confirmed that it is attractive to gamers in general, we are pricing them at a level more appropriate for card games of this type and level of artistic quality.

Sure, we could have cut corners to keep the costs down, such as not including custom-made dice, but we felt that would have made the game a less exceptional product, and one that would have been a disservice to everyone who worked so hard on it. We've talked with distributors in the game industry, and they have given us guidance on what the proper price is for this game relative to similar games in the market.

We hope you enjoy the game, whether you are continuing to play the first printing or whether you pick up the brand new version!

Our second printing of the Nordguard Card Game has arrived early, so we are extending the MidFur Pre-Order sale two more days to allow our Australian fans a chance to add the game to their orders. Shipping will still be $1.50 per item, so there will be no penalty for those of you who have already placed an order.

When: Now through Thursday, 8 November.

How: Same as before! Place your order (all products in stock in our catalog will be available), then when checking out, select the “MiDFur At-Con Pickup” option. If you have already placed an order for pick-up at MiDFur, please include the order number (from your confirmation email) in the comments field so that we can group your orders together.

Please see our previous post on MiDFur Pre-Orders for full ordering and pick-up details.

Kyell Gold will be stopping by Sofawolf Central this coming weekend, and he has offered to sign any books (containing his work, presumably) that you order and pay for now until Sunday, November 4th.

Simply place an order on our site as always. You can find all his novels in the Kyell Gold section of our website; however, don't forget that he's also appeared in many volumes of Heat! (You will have to click the adult products toggle to view most of these products.) If you'd like Kyell to personalize the inscription, be sure to include the name you'd like it dedicated to in the notes field when you check out.

You must have paid for your books before we'll let Kyell sign them, for obvious reasons. Paying by credit card is preferred. You can also use PayPal by choosing the "Check/Money Order" option during checkout, and then sending the total amount to sales@sofawolf.com.

We will have a booth at MiDFur 2012 this December 4-8, which will be shared with and managed by Kyell Gold. Shipping heavy things like books to Australia is very expensive, even in bulk, so we are going to be very selective in what we send, to avoid having to pay to ship unsold product back. We will also be adjusting our prices to help offset shipping costs.

HOWEVER, if you pre-order now, you will not only get to choose from our entire catalog, but we’ll also give you a 50% discount on shipping over the premium we’ll be charging at the convention, and a MUCH greater discount over our usual shipping costs on our website. (Minimum shipping to Australia from our website these days is $33, which is for USPS Priority International.)

When:
The sale runs NOW through Sunday, November 4th.

Why Pre-Order?

1. Choose from our full catalog
   We will only be shipping select items for at-con sales.
2. Cheaper shipping
   50% off the shipping premium we’ll be adding to at-con sales
3. Guaranteed in-stock
   No need to rush to the dealer’s room to get stuff before it’s sold out.

To Order:

1. Go to our website and put items in your cart as you normally would.
2. When you check out, select the “MiDFur At-Con Pickup” option. This is a flat $1.50 per item charge. (Our system will still require a shipping address. Just enter your billing address here to make it happy.)
3. Payment: We will only honor the pre-order shipping discount if you pay before we ship. This can be achieved two ways:
   • Credit Card, via the normal website process.
   • PayPal: Select the “Check/Money Order” option, then send the total amount of your order to sales@sofawolf.com by the last day of the pre-order sale, November 4th.
4. Print out a copy of your receipt to bring to MiDFur.

To Pick Up:

1. Come to the MiDFur dealer’s den during open hours. Try to avoid times when Kyell is doing panels to ensure that someone will be at the table.
2. Bring a copy of your receipt and a photo ID matching your face to the name on your order. (If you need to have someone else pick up your order for you, please arrange that with us ahead of time. Email sales@sofawolf.com with details.)
3. We will have you sign off that you have received your order at the time you pick up your order.
4. Read and enjoy! (Read quick, before the end of the world...)

This is your two-week reminder for Heat #10 comic submissions! Submission deadline for comics/proposals is Monday, October 1st. (We don't specify a time, so you are free to submit as long as it is still October 1st somewhere on the planet.)

Submission guidelines are here: www.sofawolf.com/submissions/heat-comics

Feeling a bit daunted by all the details on the submission requirements page? Please don't be! The goal of the details are (1) to make sure that you provide the type of materials we'll be looking for to best judge your story and art, and (2) try to keep things uniform so that we can easily share the submissions among reviewers. Do your best to meet the requirements, and the closer you get the happier we reviewers will be.

If you have any thoughts, questions or feedback please feel free to comment here, on our Blog or via email to heat@sofawolf.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Independent Comic Wins Hugo Award

Beloved comic “Digger” earns creator and publisher first Hugo award.

Chicago, IL — September 2, 2012 — Ursula Vernon, author of the popular children’s book series "Dragonbreath," has won the Hugo award for Best Graphic Story for her comic "Digger."

"Digger," a comic about a practical wombat trapped in a quirky fantasy world, began in 2003 and concluded on the web in March, 2011. Sofawolf Press, an independent publisher based in Minneapolis, MN, packaged and published the comic in six print volumes, the last of which was released in summer 2011.

In its early years, "Digger" won several webcomics awards for its distinctive black and white art style, and its print presentation earned Vernon a nomination for "Talent Most Deserving of Wider Recognition" in the comic industry's Eisner Awards in 2006. Of her Hugo win, Vernon says, "I'm so honored and grateful to see my little wombat bring home a Hugo. Thanks to everyone who made Digger a success."

Sofawolf Press, a small press specializing in publications featuring anthropomorphic animal characters, began publishing collected volumes of "Digger" in 2005. Founded in 1999, Sofawolf Press has published over sixty books, graphic novels, and magazines, and is currently considered the longest-tenured publisher of exclusively anthropomorphic literature. The Press's publications have received 21 Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association (Ursa Major) awards since its inception, but this is its first Hugo award. CEO Jeffery Eddy says, "We always knew Digger was exceptional, and it is our pleasure to have played a part in presenting it to the wider community and giving it the recognition it deserves."

The Hugo Awards are the popular awards for the field of science fiction and fantasy. They are awarded in a ceremony each year at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), which this year was held in Chicago, Illinois. In 2009, the World Science Fiction Society, which administers the Hugo Awards, added a category for "Best Graphic Story," to be presented for five years as a trial to evaluate the breadth of content in that category in science fiction and fantasy. At the World Science Fiction Society’s meeting this weekend, the group voted to remove the five-year sunset clause and make the award for Best Graphic Story a permanent part of the Hugo slate.

Digger
Volumes 1–6
Sofawolf Press, Inc.
St. Paul, MN
www.sofawolf.com
http://swp.im/shop/digger

One Week Reminder!

This is your one-week reminder that we are accepting submissions for stories and poetry for our all-color issue of Heat #10 through next Monday, September 3rd:

www.sofawolf.com/submissions/heat

Submissions for Comics are open for another month, through Monday, October 1st:

www.sofawolf.com/submissions/heat-comics

Hot Dish story selection is complete! We are now looking for one artist to provide nine (9) interior illustrations for Hot Dish, a novel-length anthology of longer-format (10-20,000 word) romantic/erotic stories. The anthology will be similar in length and format to our previous adult anthology, “X”, edited by Kyell Gold. (swp.im/p/x) Illustrations will appear at the beginning of each of the nine stories in the collection. The stories contain adult content, but the illustrations need not be explicit.

Project Details:

The images will be printed in black and white (grayscale) on pages 8 by 5 1/4 inches. We would prefer to have the images complete by the end of October (~ 3 months) if possible. Payment will be $25 per image. (This is for rights to publish the image; you retain originals and other rights, such as selling prints.)

The stories cover a wide range of species and settings. We are looking for a single artist who can provide illustrations appropriate for each story, but with a unifying overall style that helps bring the collection together as a cohesive whole. The cover art is currently being created by Kamui, and it has an awesome retro look that blends mid-century pinups and Normal Rockwell illustration styles. (See his poster for Isolation Play as an example of his retro-styling work!) The interior illustrations don’t need to match the cover, but if we can get interior illustrations that pair nicely with the cover, we’ll be very happy.

Main characters include canines (domestic and wild), felines (all wild), reptiles/dragons, equines, mustelids, and birds. There are also a few humans and fantasy creatures, so being able to draw characters other than anthropomorphic animals is important. Settings range from contemporary urban to futuristic virtual realities to historical (including a touch of fairy-tale). We also have an interstellar fighter who gets marooned on a planet of pre-technological species, as well as a story set in an agricultural remnant on the edge of a futuristic semi-distopian society.

Submission Details:

Please email your interest in working on this project to heat@sofawolf.com and include examples of your work. Email attachments are fine as long as you send screen-resolution (~72dpi) images rather than print (300+ dpi) images and keep the number of files reasonable. If your art is available online, we encourage you to send links to examples, rather than attachments. Previous publication history is worth mentioning especially if you can provide examples/links of published images; however, prior publication is not required.

Please put some thought into selecting examples. The easier you make it for us to quickly get an overview of your skills and techniques the better. Provide us with a half dozen or so images that represent your best work in styles you think would work well for Hot Dish; then provide additional links we can visit if we would like to see more. Feel free to include notes explaining why you chose particular images, of if you’d like to direct our attention to a specific aspect of an image.

Make sure your examples show:

• Your best work in styles you think appropriate for Hot Dish
• Focus on black and white (grayscale) images
• A wide range of furry character species
• Examples of non-furry (scaled, feathered, and human) characters

Please try to get your application in within the next two weeks. We will begin reviewing applications August 18, and we will continue to take applications until we have chosen an artist for this project.