More formally known as the Annual Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Award, the Ursa Major Award is presented annually for excellence in the furry arts. It is intended as Anthropomorphic (a.k.a. Furry) Fandom's equivalent of the Hugo Award ® presented by the World Science Fiction Society, mystery fandom's Anthony Award, horror fandom's Bram Stoker Award, and so forth. Anyone may nominate and vote for candidates for the Awards. These Awards are decided by the fans, not by a committee.

      NEWS

The first December update of the Recommended List is now up. We would like to remind you that you have a little more than a month to get your recommendations in. Many people use the list as a ready reference for what is eligible for Award nominations, so if it is important to get noticed, make sure it gets onto the list soon! So far, there has been only one recommendation for the fursuit category. If there are insufficient nominations for this category, it will not be part of the 2019 nominations.

The results of the voting for the 2018 Ursa Major Awards were announced at a ceremony at AnthrOhio convention, held at Crowne Plaza North, 6500 Doubletree Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday May 26, 2019.

The 2018 Winners

Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture
Live-action or animated feature-length movies.

Isle of Dogs (Directed by Wes Anderson)

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman)
• Avengers: Infinity War (Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo)
• Peter Rabbit (Directed by Will Gluck)
• Mary Poppins Returns (Directed by Rob Marshall)
 

Best Dramatic Series or Short Work
TV series or one-shots, advertisements or short videos.

Aggretsuko (Directed by Rarecho)

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Bojack Horseman (Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg)
• DuckTales (Developed by Matt Youngberg and Francisco Angones)
• Brush: A Fox Tale (Directed by Willi Anton and Faustina Arriola)
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Directed by Denny Lu and Mike Myhre)
 

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

Small World, by Gre7g Luterman

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Once A Dog, by Shaune Lafferty Webb
• Cosmic Lotus, by Bernard Doove
• The Snake's Song, by Mary E. Lowd
 

Best Short Fiction
Stories less than 40,000 words, poetry, and other short Written works.

Uri's Bitterweet Story, by Uranium 235. (Published in CrossTime Cafe)

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Of Starwhals and Spaceships, by Mary E. Lowd. (Published in Daily Science Fiction)
• A Legend in His Own Time, by Fred Patten. (Published in What the Fox!)
• The Beating of Wild Hooves, by Dwale. ( Published in CLAW, Volume 1)
• Come To Todor!, by Fred Patten. (Published in Exploring New Places)
 

Non-Fiction Work
Includes art books, opinion pieces, and news articles.

Furries: Down the Rabbit Hole. (Created by Fredrik Knudsen)

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• FurSuit History. (from Culturally F'd)
• This is Life with Lisa Ling: Furry Nation. (from CNN)
• The Day the Fandom Died. (from Rooview)
• Furries Assist. (from Rooview)
 

Best Other Literary Work
Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, and serialized online stories.

What the Fox!, edited by Fred Patten.

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• CLAW Volume 1, edited by K.C. Alpinus.
• ROAR 9, edited by Mary E. Lowd.
• Heat 15, produced by Dark End and Teagan Gavet.
• Tales From the Guild: World Tour, edited by Ocean Tigrox.
 

Best Graphic Story
Includes comic books, and serialized online stories.

Lackadaisy, by Tracy J. Butler

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• The Dreamkeepers, by David & Liz Lillie
• Scurry, by Mac Smith
• DreamKeepers Prelude, by David & Liz Lillie
• Rising Sand, by Ty Dunitz and Jenn Lee
 

Best Comic Strip
Newspaper-style strips, including those with some ongoing arcs.

Carry On, by Kathryn Garrison Kellogg

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Freefall, by Mark Stanley
• Doc Rat, by Jenner
• Part Time Dragons, by Spike Parra and Donna Vu
• The Whiteboard, by Doc Nickel
 

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.

Culturally F’d, created by Arrkay and Underbite Dragon

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Dogpatch Press, edited by Patch Packrat
• Moms of Furries (created by Moms of Furries on YouTube)
• Flayrah, edited by Sonious, Dronon, and Lawrence “Greenreaper” Parry
• The South Afrifur Pawdcast (on YouTube)
 

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

Pirates!, website header for Furry Weekend Atlanta 2019, by Caraid

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Cover art for CLAW Volume 1, by Teagan Gavet
• Murder in Surfer's Paradise, cover of the FurDU 2018 convention book, by Tracy J. Butler
• Exploring New Places, book cover art by Demicoeur
• Will You Be My Valentine? by Ashley Ash
 

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

Deltarune: Chapter 1 (Developed by Toby Fox)

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Spyro Reignited Trilogy (Developed by Toys for Bob, Published by Activision)
• Ghost of a Tale (Developed and Published by SeithCG)
• Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! (Developed by Game Freak, Published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo)
• Detective Pikachu (the English release) (Developed by Creatures, Published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company)
 

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

e621.net

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Inkbunny
• WikiFur
• Lackadaisy.com
• Furry Writers' Guild
 

Best Fursuit
Anthropomorphic costumes.

SonicFox, created by Yamishizen/Fursuit Enterprise, owned by SonicFox.

    Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

• Penelope, created by Dludnerad (Tamara Carmichael) and Paul Kidd, owned by Paul Kidd.
• Zabivaka, the FIFA World Cup Mascot for 2018
• Ravtrag, created by Suit-a-dile, owned by Ravtrag
 

PLEASE DONATE

The Ursa Major Awards have always been run by volunteer members, and all costs associated with it such as maintaining the website, and especially providing the physical awards to the winners, have mostly been borne by donations from the core members. In order to help us with this, and to improve the quality of the award trophies, we would like to solicit donations from the fandom.

	The easiest way to contribute is to use the PayPal link button on the left for paypal@ursamajorawards.org, and any donation would be hugely appreciated. If everyone who nominated or voted donated just one dollar, all our expenses would be covered for the year! 100% of the money received will be put towards the running costs. Thank you for your consideration.

To be eligible, a work must have been released between January 1 and December 31 of the calendar year for that award, and must include a non-human being given human attributes (anthropomorphic), which can be mental and/or physical (for example the intelligent rabbits in Watership Down for the former, and Bugs Bunny for the latter.) Simply including an animal character is not sufficient to qualify. Non-animal characters such as Wall-E are also anthropomorphic.

While we have yet to do so, the ALAA reserves the right to exclude from the Recommended Anthropomorphics List, and from contention for an Ursa Major Award, any works it deems to be obscene, libelous, illegal, or otherwise detrimental to the integrity and good standing of the Ursa Major Awards and the anthropomorphics fandom that those awards represent. For example: Works of a predominantly sexual nature, or which include explicit sexual situations involving characters which may be underage or non-anthropomorphic animals.

The Ursa Major Award was administered and presented during its first two years by The ConFurence Group, a membership organization dedicated to promoting anthropomorphic fandom-related events. It is now presented by the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association (ALAA), a membership organization dedicated to promoting anthropomorphic literature and arts through such projects as this List and Award, and others which may be undertaken later. Discussions are currently taking place to improve their effectiveness and expand their presence throughout Furry fandom. All suggestions are invited.

The Ursa Major Award banner was designed and drawn by EosFoxx. The A.L.A.A. much appreciates Eos' contribution.

'Hugo Award,' 'Worldcon,' and 'World Science Fiction Society' are registered service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.