Welcome to the Wonderful Wizard of Claws!
Wizard of Claws is a newsletter that focuses on reviewing and analyzing fictional stories from the perspective of an animal rights activist, as well as hosting interviews with authors, filmmakers, and anyone else involved in the process of creating fiction.
In my reviews, readers will join me as I explore stories across genres to determine how positively or negatively animals and animal advocates are represented, and offer advice for how to better represent them.
In interviews, I ask storytellers about their writing process, as well as how their love of animals influences their work.
My hope is that storytellers and story lovers will find a community of like-minded animal advocates, as well as think more critically about the role fiction plays in determining how we perceive and use animals in the real world.
Elise Myslinski: The Woman Behind the Curtain
Animals have been part of my story since I was born, woven into the ups and downs, friends steadfastly by my side. As a rather shy (alright, terrified) child, animals offered a sort of comfort to me. They didn’t carry any prejudice or judgment; with them, I could always be myself.
Since going vegan in 2015, animals have only become more important in my life. Rather than simply admiring them, I seek now to protect them every day, yet when I turn to fictional worlds to escape the omnipresent tragedies of reality, animals are rarely as free as me. Instead, watching my favorite shows or reading my favorite novels only serves to remind me of all the ways humans thrust our dominance over our animal cousins.
As I’ve studied the art of storytelling and practiced to refine my writing skills, I found myself analyzing and editing the stories I came across, making them more animal-friendly in my mind. I figured if I felt this way, then there must be others who do too, so I decided to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) to share my thoughts.
Getting Started
If you’ve made it this far and are still wondering if fictional depictions of animals are really worth talking about, check out “Do Fictional Animals Matter?”: by asking first if fiction matters, then if animals matter, I push the two together to finally argue my case for why I believe fictional animals matter. This is the guiding light behind everything I write, so I consider it the best place to start.
Subscriber Benefits
Everything on my website is available free of charge, but subscribing helps me know how many people are interested in the topics I discuss. Upon subscribing, new newsletters will be delivered directly to your inbox, so there’s no need to search out each post every week. (I know how cluttered emails can get, so you never have to worry about receiving any unwanted spam from me.)
By downloading the app, you can read the newsletter, as well as like, comment, and share it with other Substack readers. I also post mini-reviews of things I’m currently watching or reading over on the Notes section, which aren’t included in my weekly emails.
Schedule
Posts are published at 9 a.m. EST every Monday
Reviews: the first and third Monday each month
I call these “reviews” for simplicity’s sake, but they’re often more like analyses, drawing in historical context, scientific research, or my own personal stories to speak to the themes within a particular piece of fiction. Here are some examples (and some of my favorites, but don’t tell the others):
Interviews: the second and fourth (and fifth, when applicable) Monday each month
