Leo Awards | blog

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.

Current categories include Novels, Novellas, Anthologies, Nonfiction, Short Stories, Poems, and Book Covers.

Novels here are defined as anything 60,000 words or more. Novellas are anything published by itself but less than 60k.

Eligibility for Nomination (NOMINATIONS ARE NOW OPEN):

Either the author or the publisher have to identify openly as furry
The work itself has to be at least arguably furry and is marketed to furries (although not necessarily exclusively for furries)
Has to have been published in its first edition in 2020
Has to have been published in print; OR, if in digital format only, it must have been for a paying market or be available for sale online (in the case of an eBook)
Nominations have to be emailed to furrybookreview@gmail.com by February 1st, 2021

Who Gets to Nominate?

Anyone who has published a novel, two stories, or three poems; also, anyone who has edited an anthology (any qualifications must have been in the past five years) (nominations cannot be of their own work or of an anthology that includes their work; same goes for a publisher or editor of a work) (story writers can nominate other stories in an anthology that includes their work, but not their own story and not the anthology itself)
Any reviewer in the Furry Book Review program
Nominators can only nominate one work for each category

How Does Voting Work?

There will be a 5-10 person panel made up of equal parts (or very close to equal in the case of an odd number) of furry writers and non-furry writers (If part of the task of the Leos is to showcase furry literature to people outside the fandom even, then there has to be non-furry writers who also see the quality in our work.)
The people in the panel will vote on the works to be showcased in each category. A work will have to receive two-thirds of the votes in order to pass the bar and receive the Leo.

Who Gets to Vote?

If interested in being in the panel, send an email with qualifications to furrybookreview@gmail.com.
Judges must have published works in the past two years (similar to nominating criteria).
Judges will have to read ALL nominated works, so you must be able to read works in two to three months. Specify that you are able to read this amount in your email.
Judges can have nominated works, but they will simply not be able to vote on those. Because this award does not limit the "winning" to just one person, this kind of judging does not cause any competition between a judge and other nominees.
Specify in your email whether you identify as furry or not.

Note: 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.