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 nominations for the 2020 Ursa Major Awards have been counted and the nominees finalized. See the full list below.

Please return on March 1st to vote for your favorite nominees.

The Recommended List for 2021 is open for submissions.

The 2020 Nominees (in alphabetical order)

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

• Hayop Ka! (You Animal!) (Directed by Avid Liongoren, October 29) Mature Audiences.
• Onward (Directed by Dan Scanlon, March 6)
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Directed by Jeff Fowler; January 25)
• Soul (Directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers; December 25)
• Wolfwalkers (Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart; October 26)

Best Dramatic Short Work
One-shots, advertisements or short videos.

• Burrow (Directed by Madeline Sharafian; December 25)
• Mystery Skulls Animated - The Future (Directed by Ben Mangum; October 31)
• The Humiliation of Jinjur Maiham by The Home Guardsmen (Created by K Garrison; December 30)
• Trick Moon (Directed/Storyboarded by Geneva Hodgson, July 21)
• Zoophobia - "Bad Luck Jack" (Directed by Vivienne Medrano; September 30)

Best Dramatic Series
TV or YouTube series videos.

• Aggretsuko (Directed by Rarecho, Season 3 episode 1 - 10, August 27)
• Beastars (Directed by Shinichi Matsumi; Season 1 Epsiode 1 to 12) (USA Release, English Dub)
• BNA: Brand New Animal (Directed by Yoh Yoshinari; Season 1 Episode 1 to 12, June 30)
• Helluva Boss (Directed by Vivienne Medrano; Episodes "Murder Family" and "Loo Loo Land", Oct 31 - Dec 9)
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Created by Radford Sechrist; January 14 - October 12)

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

• Disbanded, by Frances Pauli. (Goal Publications; February 2020)
• Entanglement Bound, (The Entangled Universe Book 1) by Mary E. Lowd (Aethon Books, December)
• On The Mark, by Bernard Doove and Jeff Hartt (Self; October 23)
• Spin the Bottle, by Dajan Tafari (Fenris Publishing) Strong adult material
• The City That Barks and Roars, by J.T. Bird (9781838047917, August 1)

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

• Familiar, by Linnea Capps (in Dog Pile, Bound Tales Press)
• Summer Strawberries, by Mary E. Lowd (in The Voice of Dog, April 23 )
• The Glow, by Linnea Capps (in The Electric Sewer, Bound Tales Press)
• Tittilating Trivia, by Linnea Capps (in Sensory De-tails, Bound Tales Press)
• What Makes a Witch, by Linnea Capps (Weasel Press, August 18)

Best Other Literary Work
Story collections, comic collections, graphic novels, non-fiction works, and serialized online stories.

• Blacksad: The Collected Stories, by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido (Dark Horse, graphic collection, July 14)
• Bush Heroes, by Bush Heroes (many artists). (SFW Sexy Firefighters, art album, March 1)
• Difursity: Stories by Furries of Color, edited by Weasel (Thurston Howl productions, anthology, August 10)
• Selections of Anthropomorphic Regalements, Vol. 1, edited by KC Alpinus (Goal Publications, anthology, August 31)
• Tales of Hayven Celestia, edited by Rick Griffin and Gre7g Luterman (Self, anthology, January 4)

Non-Fiction Work

• From Paw To Print: Essays About Writing in the Furry Fandom, compiled by Thurston Howl. (Thurston Howl productions, essay compilation, June 1)
• Furries Among Us 3, compiled by Thurston Howl. (Thurston Howl Publications, furry essays, 2020)
• The BEST and WORST Anthro Movies Tier List, by Saberspark (YouTube, video, June 26)
• The Fandom: A Furry Documentary, directed by Ash Kreis & Eric Risher (You Tube, video, July 3)
• The Last Bronycon: A Fandom Autopsy, by Jenny Nicholson (YouTube, video, July 21)

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

• A&H Club, by Rick Griffin (Internet, January 24 to December 12)
• Beastars, by Paru Itagaki (Viz Media and Weekly Shonen Champion, Volume 4 to 8)
• Found, by Toddlergirl (Fur Affinity, September 18 to December 30)
• Oren’s Forge, by Tegan Gavet (Tapas, pages 112 to 161)
• Shine, by Babystar (Fur Affinity, January 4 to December 28) adult material

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

• Carry On, by Kathy Garrison Kellogg (Internet, January 1 to December 31)
• Doc Rat, by Jenner (Internet, January 6 to December 31)
• Freefall, by Mark Stanley (Internet, January 1 to December 30)
• Housepets!, by Rick Griffin (Internet, January 1 to December 30)
• The Whiteboard, by Doc N. (Internet, January 1 to December 24)

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.

• Dogpatch Press, edited by Patch Packrat (January 6 to December 31)
• Flayrah, edited by GreenReaper, Sonious, and Dronon (Internet; January 1 to December 31)
• Furry Writers’ Guild, edited by Literalgrill. (Internet, January to December ) (Monthly publication of the FWG, sponsors of the COYOTL awards)
• Pocari Roo, YouTube videos (January 11 to December 25)
• Zooscape, edited by Mary E. Lowd (Internet; Issue 6 - 9)

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

• A_Blue_Deer, A Night At The Fair (FurAffinity, October 10)
• Ashley A Adams, Sir Monty, The Good Boy (Artstation, August 11)
• Bubblewolf, Paintwork (Furaffinity, August 4)
• Foxer421, "TAKE OFF YOUR HEADSET!!" (Twitter, November 28)
• Lofi, Cheers (Furaffinity, January 24)

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

• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Developer and Publisher: Nintendo; March 20)
• Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (Developer: Toys for Bob, Publisher: Activision; October 2)
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Developer and Publisher: Moon Studios; March 11)
• Spiritfarer (Developer and Publisher: Thunder Lotus Games; August 17)
• Them's Fightin' Herds (Developer: Mane6, Publisher: Humble Games; April 30)

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

• Fur Affinity, Furry art and stories
• Furry Life Online, Furry online community
• Loona Moonlight_howling_666, Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss character (on Instagram)
• SoFurry, Furry art
• Stolas daddy_hoothoot, Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss character (on Instagram)

Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)

• Cassidy Civet, Maker: Blue Wolf Studios, Owner/Wearer: Cassidy Civet, Photographed at VancouFur 2020, March 7.
• Inutami Luki the Saluki, Maker: Kotoori Works, Owner/Wearer: Inutami Luki, Displayed Online August 7.
• Toriel, Maker/Owner/Wearer: Nautilus20000, Displayed online on September 12.
• Xif, Maker/Owner/Wearer: lutamesta, Displayed on the Japan Fursuit Creators runway January 17.
• Zigc the Khajiit, Maker: Inerri Creatures, Owner/Wearer: Zigc The Khagiit, Displayed online July 3.

Notice: Kyell Gold has indicated that he wishes to withdraw from consideration for the Novel and Short Story categories until further notice. For full details, please read his blog on Fur Affinity.

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.