Necko L. Fanning
Official Site of Writer & Editor
Fiction
Micro/Flash Fiction
Short Stories
Poetry
Necko's Fiction is currently under maintenance. Check back soon for updates!
Bio
As a kid growing up in Montana reading wasn't just my connection to the real world but to all the fantastical and fictional worlds made accessible through the pages of my favorite books. I was still in elementary school when I decided (after a brief flirtation with archaeology, thanks to The Mummy) that I wanted to create these worlds. The burden came when I tried to take those worlds and confine them to the tauntingly blank pages of my notebook. A journey of creativity, writing, grammar, and storytelling then took over. It was a journey riddled with crappy first, second, and tenth drafts, frustrating rejections, and validating acceptance. It was a journey that would follow me when I enlisted in the US Army as an Intelligence Analyst and into college as I pursue a degree in Creative Writing. It's a journey that, I hope, will never come to an end.
Some of the greatest advice I ever received was after reading Alex London's novel Proxy. I wrote to him with stars in my eyes, excited to have finally read a YA novel with a prominent gay character where the theme wasn't a coming out story. When I asked if he had any tips for a fledgling writer his advice--passed to him from award winning David Leviathan--was simple and profound. His words have reoriented how I approach writing in a defining way and given me a mantra by which to live by: "...if there is a story you want to exist and it doesn't, then you should write it".
My writing focuses primarily on LGBTQIA+ characters, and emphasizes normalizing their sexuality so that we can get to the heart of the story and still create heroes and villains that we can all relate to.
"Don't be a writer. Be writing." -William Faulkner
Mission Statement
To again pull from Alexander London, I work with fiction to create "... the kind of story I wished had existed when I was [fourteen]..." The mandate of any writer should be to create with purpose, to give genuine thought and intention to their writing so that it serves both the author and the reader.
Writing fiction for the LGBT community with the purpose of providing characters queer youth and adults can relate to without crafting a story explicitly dedicated to the exploration of the difficulties many experiences (e,g. the coming out story, the closeted story, the burgeoning gay man, etc.), is the intention and goal of my fiction based work.
Being able to read the story of an epic hero--who was also gay--at fourteen would have meant more to me than I can say. I strive to make sure that nobody is deprived of the beauty of a good story while also having role models that they can relate to in the most basic of ways. The works created here aren't just for the LGBT community but they are all written in honor of all queer youth who simply want their protagonist to like the same sex.
Additionally, I work as a content writer for various companies and am the Assitant Editor for BlakeWrites, an inclusive men's blog focused on "the modern man". In my non-fiction work, I focus heavily on military service, minority inclusivity, LGBTQ+ representation and advocacy, and the inclusivity of different forms of modern entertainment, including literature.