Fantasy writer and New York Times best-selling author Carrie Vaughn said she once was taken aback while talking to a man about a werewolf named Kitty, the main character in one of her book series.
“I didn’t think women could be werewolves,” the man told her.
“Dude, I made it up,” she replied. “It’s fiction.”
And in the fiction world, where anything is possible, Vaughn made the point that authors shouldn’t limit themselves and that their stories should include more heroines. She spoke on that topic Sunday at Howl Con, a werewolf-themed convention at the Red Lion Hotel Vancouver at the Quay.
During the weekendlong event, about 150 werewolf fans discussed a range of topics concerning the hairy humanoids, trying to answer questions such as: Why don’t vampires and werewolves get along, where does werewolf lore come from, and how exactly does a person become a werewolf anyway?
In Vaughn’s book series, Kitty Norville becomes one after suffering a werewolf attack. Norville, who works as a midnight radio host, starts out as a submissive member of her pack but later learns to assert herself.
Vaughn said that she often draws inspiration from strong women in the real world. She said she still hears the argument that “women don’t want to have those kinds of adventures,” but she knows that’s not true. “Kitty in the Underworld” is her latest and 12th book in the Kitty Norville series.
Writer Satyros Phil Brucato, who also was on the Sunday panel about female werewolves, said he’s even seen feminist fantasy writers unconsciously fall into the trap of writing about a damsel in distress.
“That’s how pervasive this is,” Brucato said. Traditionally, he added, “adventure fantasy is about white boys, by white boys, for white boys.”
Werewolf art
In the next room over, another group was learning how to draw werewolves. Artist Tandye Rowe ran a demonstration on how she uses a tablet and a Japanese computer program called PaintTool SAI to sketch her characters. She starts by collecting images online of wolves and humans; she’s amassed about 200 gigabytes worth of photos, she said.
Rowe warms up by drawing lines and circles on her tablet. “Always warm up,” she said. “I have a steady hand. I haven’t had any caffeine today.”
The program she used has a stabilizer that helps mimic drawing by hand. The audience seemed impressed by Rowe’s skills, especially after learning she only started drawing in 2004.
Bailey Quillin Cooper was in the back row during the talk, drawing a picture of the werewolf costume she wore Saturday. It included an artificial snout.
The Portland woman said she has been to plenty of horror conventions, but sometimes the conventions gloss over the details and include a lot of hype, such as lining up for an autograph from stars of “The Walking Dead” television series.
“This is smaller, but it’s more informative,” she said of Howl Con. It also was right up her alley.
“Werewolves have been my favorite monster for a long time,” she said. “You can identify with something that maybe is well-meaning but has a dark interior they can’t control. … But they’re also just awesome.”
It was the second Howl Con, and the convention’s first time in Vancouver. The inaugural Howl Con was in 2012 in Oregon.
From now on, the event is expected to happen annually, convention organizer Stephen Couchman said.
