INTRODUCTION
When Patricia and I sit down at the bar, order our drinks, and begin brainstorming anthology ideas, as depicted on the cover—I’m the guinea pig, Patricia is the goat—we often get a ton of ideas, none of them good. However, during one such session, we both agreed it would be cool to have an anthology based around the idea of “shifters,” people that could shift into animal forms. But we also agreed that we didn’t want an anthology filled with werewolves. They’ve been done before, have become a standard trope of urban fantasy, and we’re always more interested in something different, something unique. But how could we get that across to the reader and the writers with the least amount of fuss?
Thus, WERE- was born. It seemed obvious to me that if there were werewolves, then there were likely werelions, weretigers, and werebears out there as well. (Oh my!) Why weren’t we telling their stories? What would those stories be? How would they be different from the standard werewolf story?
As soon as we announced the project, we had authors knocking on our door to participate. The results are the seventeen stories you have here, stories that take a were-something and tell its tale. We hope you enjoy.
In the meantime, Patricia and I have slipped into our alternate forms, slid onto our barstools, and ordered our next round. It’s time to start brainstorming again.