Go here to vote for the 2018 Ursa Major Awards. The deadline is March 31.

Before nominees were chosen, the 2018 Recommended Anthropomorphics List made a much longer collection of suggested works. It’s useful as a guide for those looking for new furry stuff (and those interested in the recently added fursuit category may want to see the special requirements there.)

Please share this announcement, and help raise attention for the furry fandom equivalent of the Hugo awards for science fiction. They’re chosen by fans, not committee. Volunteers do the hard work of publicizing, organizing, counting votes, and mailing out engraved awards. These volunteers are the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association (ALAA), a membership organization dedicated to promoting works that furries love. They welcome suggestions for how to expand this effort.

The ALAA is supported by donations via PayPal (paypal@ursamajorawards.org) with 100% of the money going towards cost of the awards. Please consider donating.

The ALAA has done this for many years with only very modest help, and previously had stories here about lacking resources. One of the founders, Fred Patten, has recently passed away. In March 2018, member Bernard Doove commented:

The ALAA has needed volunteers for years, but we have lost members rather than gained, and we are all doing as much as possible to keep the Ursa Major Awards running. I’ll be donating money from my personal funds once again for the 2017 Award trophies, and I will be flying up to Queensland where the awards ceremony will be held at FurDU this year in order to run the event. The cost of that comes out of my own pocket too. I’m willing to do my bit for the cause, but we desperately need more people with the skills required to improve it.

Check out the UMA tag to learn more about them. Here’s the nominees for 13 categories. Winners will be announced on May 23–26 at AnthrOhio 2019.

The voting for the 2018 Ursa Major Awards has begun! — Ursa Major Awards (@UrsaMajorAwards) March 1, 2019

Best Motion Picture

Live-action or animated feature-length movies.

Best Dramatic Series or Short Work

TV series or one-shots, advertisements or short videos.

Best Novel

Written works of 40,000 words or more. Serialized novels qualify only for the year that the final chapter is published.

Best Short Fiction

Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short written works.

(If anyone has better links to story excerpts for the last two categories, let us know.)

Best Other Literary Work

Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.

Best Non-Fiction Work

Includes documentaries, opinion pieces, and news articles.

Best Graphic Story

Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.

Dreamkeepers, by David & Liz Lillie.

DreamKeepers Prelude, by David & Liz Lillie.

Lackadaisy, by Tracy J. Butler.

Rising Sand, by Ty Dunitz and Jenn Lee. [Couldn’t find a sufficiently anthro page to link to.]

Scurry, by Mac Smith.

Best Comic Strip

Newspaper-style strips, including those with ongoing arcs.

Best Magazine

Edited collections of creative and/or informational works by various people, professional or amateur, published in print or online in written, pictorial or audio-visual form.

Best Published Illustration

Illustrations for books, magazines, convention program books, cover art for such, coffee-table portfolios.

Best Game

Computer or console games, role-playing games, board games.

Best Website

Online collections of art, stories, and other creative and/or informational works. Includes galleries, story archives, directories, blogs, and personal sites.

Best Fursuit

Anthropomorphic costumes.

Penelope, made by Dludnerad and Paul Kidd, owned by Paul Kidd.

Ravtrag, made by Suit-a-dile, owned by Ravtrag.

SonicFox, made by Yamishizen/Fursuit Enterprise.

Zabivaka, FIFA World Cup Mascot 2018.

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