Hello. I’m Lawrence. I’ve been writing SF for a good while now. One of my first credits was in 1990 in the pages of Mythagoras (issues #2 and #3, I think) when I was a professor at New College. I was actually living in the dorms alongside the students back then, and though he never took any of my classes, one of the students I tended to hang around with was Watts Martin. I remember that Watts was trying to get a role-playing game going, based on the Erma Felna storyline from Albedo Anthropomorphics. He invited me to play, and began explaining that to start I had to choose what race I wanted to play, and he listed option. This would have been in 1988 or '89, so my memory of the conversation may be a bit off, but I think it went something like this:
Me: I want to play an elephant.
Watts: Um… that’s not an option. We can probably fake it though…
Me: Right, an elephant. From a planet where there are nothing but islands. And the islands are full of rain forests. And it rains. Every. Day.
Watts: Um…
Me: And the elephant grandmothers on that planet, they have an expression. They say, “So, do you think it will rain today?” And they laugh and laugh and laugh!
Watts: Um…
Or something like that.
Two things about this are worth mentioning. First, we never did play the game. Second, I vowed then and there to start writing a novel about those elephants, and Watts published the first two chapters.
Not long after, my academic career took me away from New College, and I fell out of contact with the students there (including Watts). But I did write the novel. It was chock full of cool ideas, lots of different anthropomorphic races, a drug that let you talk to the dead, themes of intolerance as well as loyalty, and a lot more besides.
Unfortunately, the writing sucked!
Worse still, I didn’t realize how badly the writing sucked!
I spent years trying to sell the book. The good news is that I failed. Eventually, I began to realize how bad it was (that is, cool ideas, bad writing) and I put it away in the proverbial drawer until the day when my skills as a writer were up to the task.
Years passed. I started selling fiction pretty regularly. I wrote and sold dozens of short stories and a couple of novels. I received nominations for some shiny awards. I participated a workshop and, then some years after that, a master class. Things began to make sense. And in the way of a sufi story, an editor appeared and asked me to pitch to him.
We were sitting in a restaurant during the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno, NV. I pitched several novels I had in various stages of completion. He pointed at the one about elephants and said, “that one, I want that one.” Later, I sent him an outline and three sample chapters. Later still, he offered to buy the book.
Which is how I came to write Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, coming out from Tor Books in late December. And how I come to find myself back to being a Furry Writer (not that elephants – anthropomorphic or otherwise – actually have fur, but that’s one of the points in the novel), which in many ways is where I started.
I’m ignorant of the traditions and customs of the FWG and its members, and I’ll probably put my foot in my mouth at least half a dozen times as I go forward. I ask your kind indulgence and patience, and I hope I can prove myself worthy of both.
Anyway, you’d think I was being paid by the word for this post (what? I’m not?) given the lenght. So, yeah, another thing about me, I tend toward the verbose. And explain everything in terms of stories. The former may be a problem for some of you, but I suspect the latter is something that will fit in quite well here. Thanks.
— Lawrence
Welcome, and looking forward to reading 
Feel free to leave a line or three in the shoutbox- would be great to chat with you sometime!