Seattle’s first Furry conventions began in 1998. There were eight annual ConiFur Northwests, growing from 275 to 525 attendees, before they self-destructed after the 2005 event.

Rainfurrest (or Rainfurrest Anthropomorphics International) was first held in 2007 to be ConiFur’s replacement. It seems to be more successful; Rainfurrest has grown from 370 attendees in 2007 to 1,420 last year.

Practically all Furry conventions have souvenir “conbooks”, and two or three short stories by members are a feature of these. Rainfurrest 2011 decided to take this a step further.

Dallas, TX. FurPlanet Productions, September 2011, trade paperback $10.00 (108 pages).

At the 39th Annual Annie Awards, movies featuring anthropomorphic animal characters took many top awards.

Rango was the big winner, with four awards, including Best Animated Feature. The movie with the most nominations, Kung Fu Panda 2, only won two, but one of them was Best Director for first time theatrical director Jennifer Yuh Nelson.

Other such movies with wins include Rise of the Planet of the Apes, winning Character Animation (in a Live Action Feature), Winnie the Pooh, which won Storyboarding, and Rio, for Character Animation (in an Animated Feature).

The Corey Helford Gallery, in Culver City, California, is to play host to an exhibition by painter Josh Agle, also known as "Shag".

Entitled Animal Kingdom, the exhibition will display a number of Agle's paintings, created in his distinctive retro style. Each features one or more characters dressed as animals, including feline women, equine men, a boy dressed as a lamb, and men sporting antlers.

Agle found inspiration in the furry subculture and anime fandom:

I love looking into subcultures. [...] I love that people throw themselves into it wholeheartedly

Agle was particularly inspired by fursuiters, the subset of the furry fandom which dresses up in costumes, and intrigued by the notion that "people are 'hooking up' in costume at furry conventions":

In my paintings, I always try to reference our connection to our prehistoric selves as human beings. Since we're descended from earlier mammals, maybe these people are more in touch with their primal being.

Animal Kingdom's initial reception is scheduled for February 11; the show ends on the 29^th.

For most of his wizarding life, Simon Canopus Artyle lived in the same splendid little house that was nestled up against the trunk of a giant tree. The tree was an Ephaian Oak, only it was much larger than any normal Ephaian Oak should be, having grown to its inordinate size due to the fact that Simon had spent over two centuries living in proximity to it, and magic flowed through Simon more readily than it did most people, including other wizards. When a wizard lives anywhere, though, giant tree or no, a full-fledged community typically grows up around them within five or six decades, since, as a general rule, a wizard is a very good thing for any town to have (and after this happens, most wizards decide against packing up and leaving, since the inevitable will inevitably happen again, and most simply can’t be bothered to make the effort anyway). (p. 1)

This opening paragraph indicates the leisurely, relaxed style in which Frane presents this somewhat Georgian anthropomorphic comedy of manners. Simon Artyle, a fox wizard of a couple of centuries (although he looks to be only twenty-nine or thirty), is a reader, a lover of books and libraries, to such a degree that other wizards have made him their Grand Historian of Magic, Wizarding, and Spellcraft.

“The Peculiar Quandary of Simon Canopus Artyle”, by Kevin Frane. Illustrated by XianJaguar.
FurPlanet Productions, June 2010, trade paperback $9.95 (vii + 78 pages; also at Amazon).

This is a mature content book. Please ensure that you are of legal age to purchase this material in your state or region. (publisher's advisory)

This novella is the first in FurPlanet’s ”Cupcake” series of works that are too short to be novels, but are long enough to stand on their own. It is also the winner of the Ursa Major Award for the Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction of 2010. Finally, it is the fourth of Gold’s “Forester Universe” stories, set in the same world as his Waterways, Out of Position, and Isolation Play.

FurPlanet Productions, February 2010, trade paperback $9.95 (vii + 114 pages; at Amazon); Kindle $7.99. Illustrated by Keovi.