Fox News and Some Bears Too

[altivo]

I mean real foxen. I noted my sighting yesterday afternoon, and Gary has seen the vixen twice today and also a kit. He saw the kit poking its head out from under an old log pile behind the arena (near where I saw the vixen yesterday) and mom came barking and running up to herd her wayward offspring back into shelter. An hour or so later he saw mom come running from the barns out toward the road, turn back and bark, then cut west and disappear back into the trees. The Brit neighbors' little terrier came running out along the same path as soon as the fox had disappeared. The dog has a tendency to dig for things in burrows, and I suspect mom was distracting him. She'll probably relocate the offspring now.

Some controversy seems to have erupted (it does every year) over the Ursa Major awards. Results were announced at Morphicon and posted this last week. There are complaints that it has become the Kyell Gold and Sofawolf awards. Superficially at least, this would seem to be true. However, only about a thousand votes were cast. The voting is open to anyone who will take the trouble to register and vote, so if you didn't vote and didn't nominate, then you have no right to complain at all.

I do agree that awards that are determined simply by popular vote will tend to go to the most familiar names with the most publicity rather than necessarily to the best art or literary works. The answer to that is not to try to "reform" the Ursa Major awards, but to start some additional award programs. I would like to see an award or group of awards made on literary merit, by a committee of furry writers. Membership on the committee could rotate, and a group like the Furry Writers Guild would be a good administrative basis. Something similar for artists could also be created. Awards could be given both to specific pieces of work and to individual artists and authors for their entire corpus of work.

Likewise, I think the various furry publishers should get together and make some awards of their own, again based on artistic/literary merit rather than just "who sold the most."

Note that I'm not criticizing Kyell Gold or Sofawolf. They do good work, and are popular. They also do heavy promotion, so they have high name recognition. That counts for a lot in a popular vote contest. If you really want to see someone else win in the Ursas, then you need to help promote their work in advance. Make sure it gets nominated (this takes multiple nominations, so enlist your friends.) Then once the nomination is secured, campaign for it, just as in a political election. Publicize the work and the artist or author. Make sure everyone knows how to register and vote, and that they have seen the work in question. Tell them WHY they should vote for it.

Comments

[lhexa]

Hooray foxes!

I don't think furry writers form a large and cohesive enough community for there to be worthwhile awards. In particular, good awards would have to build from the work of a strong critical community standing beside the writing community, but as yet furries have nothing like an Ebert or a Yahtzee. Hell, I'll go a step further: competent critics are far more important to a creative community than competent award-givers.

[altivo]

I have to disagree about the size of the furry author population, and the organization of the Furry Writers Guild in the last year is the beginning of some sort of community. You could have said the same about SFWA when it first began.

I don't have much respect for Ebert's kind of "criticism," to tell the truth. I question the ability of anyone to criticize an art or skill that they can't perform themselves.

[lhexa]

You probably have a better perspective than I do, but when I compare the furry writers' community to that of furry artists, it seems relatively small and scattered... and the artists' community has only recently reached the point where a member can reasonably hope to make a living from the practice.

A good critic requires the ability to perceive worth, articulate its nature and relations, and compensate for his limited perspective. The first of those three attributes isn't the sole domain of practitioners (though practicing an art does help a lot), and the second two can as easily be found in outsiders as in practitioners. I do find most criticism useless (Ebert and Yahtzee included, except as entertainment -- but their names are the most famous ones I know), but every now and then I'll find a critic who brings new insight to things I already liked and makes me reevaluate things I had dismissed, like Dave Hickey or Stanley Cavell. The work of such people is too valuable to dismiss because of those critics who do nothing more than stick a number on their own reaction.

[schnee]

Hmm, I really don't think encouraging people to start campaigns to win the award after they've been nominated is really a good idea. It's already a popularity contest to some extent; it'd be sad to see it turn into a political race where those that scream the loudest and promise the biggest presents ("free gift art for everyone who votes for me!") get the votes.

Not that I necessarily think the current system is a problem. You nominate things; you vote for things. If you don't, then as you say, you have no reason to complain.

But splitting the awards into "popular" and "jury's choice" awards might be an idea, as long as the jury members were actually deserving of their elevated position.

As for the literary awards, ones for individual pieces already exist; a "lifetime award" would be a nice addition, but I don't think it should be limited to writers.

[altivo]

People already run campaigns for the Ursas. That culture has been established for a number of years, and as I said, reforming it is probably impossible. That's why I think additional mechanisms for recognition based on different criteria will be needed.

[avon_deer]

Literature is a funny medium in our particular subculture. When a group of people have become so used to instant gratification, getting them to invest time in reading is an uphill struggle UNLELSS it is by an author who has already made a name for themselves.

[altivo]

What you describe here is a valid problem, but it isn't limited to any subculture. Our society at large is growing more and more resistant to reading much of anything (unless it's the television schedule, though I think even that is often replaced by random channel switching.)

The Ursa Majors cover more than just writing, in any case, and suffer from the same defects in all categories. People vote for the film output of major studios, ignoring the lesser films because they haven't seen them or never even heard of them. The same is probably true of artwork, even though in that case the art itself is linked to the ballot and can be viewed by a single click.

If mainstream literary awards were given in the manner in which the Ursas are conducted, then junk romance novels and formula fiction would win year after year.