The third issue of Furry Tales and Meowsings came out this weekend. Its cover features the beautiful winning picture of our October photo competition and its contents are of the same quality as the photo on the cover.
Furry Tales and Meowsings is a booklet of creative writing sold in aid of the Cork Animal Care Society. It is mainly written by our supporters and printed and assembled by a team of volunteers. The proceeds from its sale go towards the welfare of the many cats and dogs we care for. It helps us to pay our veterinary bills, as well as buying food without which animals would not survive! By getting this booklet, you are not only treating yourself with a good read, we are also helping animals in Cork.
This month, we are honoured to have received the gift of a short story from Karen A. Lynch. You might remember that she had already helped us through her story submitted to Floyd the Dog? This time, she is giving us a story very much in touch with the season as we are still in the spirit of Halloween and her story is named “Shade, a Ghostly Tale.”
Karen A. Lynch resides in Tampa, Florida, USA. A lifelong horse enthusiast, she currently breeds Andalusian horses. Karen has a BA in creative writing and political science from The University of Tampa. She is the author of the spy novel, The Game of Lies, the play Cat Scanned, ghostwriter for her husband, Grayston L. Lynch’s, historic book Decision for Disaster; Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs, publisher for five years of the international award winning Suncoast Chapter of the United States Army and John Wayne Chapter of the US Army Special Forces newsletters, and Assistant Editor of The University of Tampa’s paper The Minaret from which she received an Investigative Reporting Award. She is most famous for her delightful, international award winning short stories, Finn McCool, the Magic Leprechaun Tales.
Finn McCool is a real cat who was born of a feral mother in Karen’s bedroom in 2007. He is spokescat for Karen’s cat rescue Florida Cause for Paws, which has been in operation for 23 years. Florida Cause for Paws currently houses or feeds over 60 cats and kittens. The objective of the rescue is to find wonderful forever homes for those cats and kittens that are adoptable, to shelter for life those to old or sickly to be adoptable, and to neuter or spay, offer some form of shelter and feed for life those feral cats who must spend their lives outdoors. You may befriend Finn McCool, the Magic Leprechaun Cat on Facebook and read his tales at www.warofwits.net/blog.
This month’s issue also contains “Special Scars,” a short story about these animals who leave a mark on us written by Katrina Valentine Tracuma, “A-Z Animal Shelter,” a poem by Wendy Heffernan expressing the reality of all those looking after animal rescues and a heartbreaking poem, “Uggie,” by an anonymous supporter.
We are now looking submissions for the fourth issue of the booklet. These can be poems or short stories, factual or fictional. The only guideline we have is that the piece must contain an animal, although it does not have to be a main character. There is also one extremely important condition: the work must be yours! We will in fact ask you to fill a form certifying that it is your own work and that you authorise the ACS to use it for the booklet. We also welcome pieces written by children!
You will be able to buy the third issue of Furry Tales and Meowsings from the following outlets (the first and second issues are still available in some of them and from our online shop):
- Midleton Books in Midleton
- Lush in Cork
- Maxi Zoo in Ballincollig and Midleton
- Pet Stores in Ballincollig
- O’Connell’s Pet Supplies in Cobh
- The Cat Hospital in Glanmire
- Cloyne Veterinary Clinic in Cloyne
- Knockgriffin Veterinary Clinic in Midleton
- Gilabbey Vet in Togher
- Animal Care Hospital in Douglas
- The Village Veterinary Clinic in Douglas
- The Ballycotton shop
- Londis in Ladysbridge
- Supervalu in Cobh
- as well as from our online shop
We wish to thank all our contributors, but also our readers and the owners of the outlets afore-mentioned, who have kindly accepted to sell the booklets for us. You are all making a contribution to our mission of saving animals’ lives.