Kyell is one of the highlighted Sofawolf Press writers; he's the one who, last year, made me go "WTF? When did they start giving Ursa Majors to erotica?" He's printed regularly in "Heat," and Sofawolf is one of the more well known furry publishers, with a substantial fanbase to draw from when these come out.
I have a problem with nominations coming from Yiffstar, personally; far as I'm concerned, these stories should be at least posted on an organized 'zine site to be considered. But, that's me, and I'm bitter 'cause my masterwork and attempt to show that I can write more than erotica was nudged out by porn last year. (Ironic, no?)
I'm working on a soft erotica story I intend to submit to Sofawolf some time this year. If you can't beat'em...

Heh, looks like I had the same befall me as it did to you.

Written erotica isn't really all that much to my taste, and this is from someone who's read Fanny Hill, the Perfumed Garden, et alia. My story certainly had some hints of stuff going on behind the scenes, but in general I know one thing: I can't write soft porn for beans. Romans policiers a la Simenon, slapstick comedy a la Wodehouse, that I can do. Soft porn? *headshake*

Sinnessteuersymphonie was a story I'm rather proud of, and I'm still going to spend the hundreds of dollars to get the proper illustrations for it. If Rusty Haller does a bangup job on one or two of them, I might push them for next year.

There's always next year.

It looks like Sofawolf got 2 of the 5 novel nominations, and 5 of the 6 short story nominations, by the way. Sheesh.

Yep. Time for the folks behind the Ursa Majors to introduce a vetting system of some sort; when you've got people like you and I, who are doing things in an independent manner, up against a professional publishing group that's putting out vast quantities of furry m/m erotica, there's no possible way that the public participation system will work.

I'm not quite sure what the issue is. If their work is more popular, it is quite likely to win a popularity award, which is what the UMA is. If it is not more popular, but they are getting more nominations anyway, then you're not doing a good enough job of mobilizing your readers.

To reiterate: The UMA (to my knowledge) does not make a determination at any point on the quality of the works - not even to determine whether it is furry. The people who choose to nominate and vote do that.

One of my pet peeves about furry writing is too often it's just "humans in animal suits"; there is very little reason or justification for having anthro characters, even if it's simply referring to animal traits or expressions. The description of Kyell's stories, while they might be decently written stories, doesn't seem very "furry". There should be some reason why the characters are the way they are, and Ursa Major should be focusing on those works that portray those ideals the best.

The description of Kyell's stories, while they might be decently written stories, doesn't seem very "furry". There should be some reason why the characters are the way they are, and Ursa Major should be focusing on those works that portray those ideals the best.

The problem, here, is that you're basing your opinion on a description of the stories without having read the stories themselves.

Having read much of Kyell Gold's work, myself, I can say quite assuredly that he puts quite a lot of effort and detail into highlighting the animal nature of the characters and the society in which they live (in fact, it's one of the key points of most of what he writes).

Granted, I agree with the point you're making in general, certainly, but don't try to levy that against stories and novels you haven't even read.