2020 update for the Ursa Major Awards and The Good Furry Award for Ash Coyote

by Patch O'Furr

Something cool just came in the mail. It’s better than a Christmas present. It’s the Ursa Major Award for the year’s best anthropomorphic magazine!

The Ursa Major Awards are for public voting for the best furry movies, books, comics, art and more from the previous year. If you know of good 2020 works to share, the Recommended Anthropomorphics List is open NOW. Tell them what you love: recommended@ursamajorawards.org. Check out the list if you’re looking for good stuff to watch and read. Nominations for the next awards will start later in January 2021.

The most recent winners were decided a while ago, but it took time for everyone to get awards in the mail just recently. The awards depend on volunteer work by Rod O’Riley, the co-founder of ConFurence (with Mark Merlino). Rod and Mark run the Prancing Skiltaire house in Southern California and have been together for 40 years.

2020 Good Furry Award for Ash Coyote

News about The Good Furry Award was waiting so I could share these together. The award is run by Grubbs Grizzly to recognize furries who make outstanding positive contributions to the fandom. In June, the award (and a $500 check) went to Ash Coyote and she made a video about it.

The Good Furry Award site has more about Ash Coyote and how she features furries on Youtube. Her full length movie The Fandom: A Furry Documentary is on the Ursa Majors recommended list and got a great review here. It’s full of archival video from early fandom times when Mark and Rod were starting the first furry con.

More furry news

Mark Merlino sent a story to publish soon about hosting Alan Dean Foster as a guest at ConFurence. Foster is the accomplished science fiction author who recently got mainstream headlines for being unpaid by Disney and fighting for his rights.

In Mark’s story, their small furry con got Foster to attend when he turned down an invitation from Worldcon. I also got replies from the producer who optioned Foster’s Spellsinger series for a movie and announced it at a furry con back in 2011.

The Dogpatch Press SPECIAL FEATURES AND TOP ARTICLES page is getting long-due updates to list over 6 years of stories. One is the mega-list of Furclubs around the world (independent night club parties for furries). Their history is the topic of a long piece shared on Patreon. It was written for a book that came out in 2017. Now it can be seen online for patrons.

Check out Rod O’Riley’s own news site, InFurNation which covers movies, books, comics and more with furry appeal.

Freshly posted on Twitter: my literary rabbithole thread about a 1920’s LGBT proto-furry who influenced science fiction.

Photos requested with the award.

I’m so proud to get notice from Rod, the award volunteers and you if you enjoy any of the stories and helped vote for this. There wouldn’t be good furry news without you.

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