Leo Awards, furry fandom's third annual literary awards, announced
On December 11, 2017, Thurston Howl Publications announced the launching of the new annual Leo Awards, to be administered by THP’s Furry Book Review program. They will be furry fandom’s third annual literary award, after the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association’s Ursa Major Awards, presented for works since 2001, and the Furry Writers’ Guild’s Cóyotl Awards, presented for works since 2011.
The Leo Awards are still in the formation stage, but they will first be presented during 2018 for works published during the calendar year 2017. Nominations will be accepted by the Furry Book Review Program through March 1, 2018. The date of the announcement of the winners has not yet been set.
The Leo Awards will be given in the six categories of Novels, Novellas, Anthologies, Nonfiction, Short Stories, and Poems. Nominators must be authors of furry books, two short stories, or three poems, or the editor of an anthology of furry stories, during the past five years. (Or be one of the Furry Book Review’s reviewers. See the Leo Awards nomination list for the full rules.)
Unlike the two prior awards, the winners will be chosen by a FBR panel of five to ten author judges. The winners must be approved by 2/3 of the judges. The nominees will be considered for literary merit. Those that are approved of having such merit will be declared Leo Award winners. Thus it is possible to have multiple award winners in each category. The goal of the Leo Awards is to publicly recommend all of the furry works worth reading in each category every year, not just the single best.
A nomination list has already been published. New nominees will be added to it through March 1, 2018.
About the author
Fred Patten — read stories — contact (login required)a retired former librarian from North Hollywood, California, interested in general anthropomorphics
Comments
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Fred Patten
I recently got my first book from the programme that I need to review.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
Congratulations! My own book reviews are longer than the Furry Book Review program wants -- they are appearing on Dogpatch Press today -- but I fully support the FBR and its new Leo Awards. We need more book reviews in furry fandom, especially of furry novels that are overlooked by most book reviewers.
Fred Patten
The first deadline of the new Leo Literary Awards has passed, for excellence in anthropomorphic literature rather than just “best of the year”. Nominations for the 2017 Leo Awards closed on February 1st, 2018.
There are 15 novels nominated, 7 novellas, 16 short stories, 7 anthologies, 4 poems, and 3 nonfiction works. “Novels” apparently includes collections of short stories, since one of the Novel nominees is “Jackalope Wives and Other Stories” by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon).
The Leos are seemingly skewed toward works that are published in electronic editions, since each nominee must be approved by a panel of 5 to 10 judges selected by the Furry Book Review administration. To quote from the rules, “Actually winning the award is contingent on the publisher being able and willing to send a review copy / review copies to FBR to actually judge them. If a publisher is not able to furnish such copy to the jury, then that work will automatically be exempt from the award.” If each work must be read by from 5 to 10 judges, works that can be sent electronically will have an advantage over paper works that must be physically mailed to each judge.
The panel of judges must approve of each work by a 2/3 vote for it to be declared a winner. The rules state “The Leo Awards’ goal is to highlight exceptional works of literature in the furry fandom. The Award will be given to those works who pass a benchmark score by our judges. This means that there will not be one singular ‘best’ work in each category.” The date of the announcement of the Awards has not been set, but the judges have been given two to three months to read each nominee submitted by its publisher.
Fred Patten
Isn't every work available in an electronic editions now? I mean, the presses have been computerized for decades.
While it isn't necessarily the best way to experience a work, I'd be surprised if they didn't accept PDF copies for review.
Yarst. It seems that we have to specify that these are the Leo LITERARY Awards, awarded by the Furry Book Review committee of Thurston Howl Publications since 2018.
Otherwise they may get confused with (1) the Leo Awards (for the British Columbia film and television industry, presented by the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Foundation of British Columbia since 1999); (2) the Leo Tolstoy Literary Award (Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award, for the best “traditional” novel in Russian, presented by the Leo Tolstoy Museum Estate and Samsung Electronics since 2003); (3) the Leo Gershoy Award, “for the best publication in English dealing with the history in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries” (Wikipedia), awarded by the American Historical Association since 1977; (4) the Literary LEO Awards (“The evening will feature an exhibition of the winning photographs, select readings of the winning prose and poetry, a cash bar and complementary hors-d’oeuvres”, hosted by LEO Magazine (Louisville Eccentric Observer, a free weekly alternative newspaper) at the Copper & Kings Distillery of Louisville, KY; (5) -- oh, you want more?
Fred Patten
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