The ALAA’s 2012 Anthropomorphic Recommended List will close on January 15, 2013, to allow for last-minute recommendations of last-week-of-2012 releases. The 2012 Ursa Major Awards nominations will open on January 17, the first day of Further Confusion 2013.

Go to the Ursa Major Awards website on January 17 to register for an online nomination form. You may cast up to five nominations in each of eleven categories: Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture, Best Dramatic Short Work or Series, Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Other Literary Work, Best Graphic Story, Best Comic Strip, Best Magazine, Best Published Illustration, Best Website, and Best Game. If you do not have five nominees in any category, you may nominate less. To be eligible, a work must have been released during the calendar year 2012; must include a non-human being given human attributes (anthropomorphic), which can be mental and/or physical; and must receive more than one nomination.

If you cannot think of anything to nominate, you may refer to the 2012 Recommended List. That has at least five titles in each category, recommended by Furry fans. Remember, 2012 Recommendations are not nominations for the awards. Nominations of a work are separate. You may nominate a work that has not been recommended if it meets the eligibility criteria.

Chakat Goldfur reports that MiDFur 2012 (14), Australia’s largest (474 attendees this year) and oldest (since 1999 as a house party; 2008 as a convention) regular Furry event, will be the last under that name or in December. Its next meeting will be under the temporary name of Egyptian Nights, January 10-12, 2014, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The change is due to the growth of the convention making hotels uncomfortably small, and because December is an inconvenient month for many OzFurs. MiDFur stands for Melbourne in December Furmeet, so changing the month has made the name obsolete.

The next convention will be known by the name of its theme until a new permanent name is chosen; and will always be in mid-January. A contest is being held to select the new name. Also, some fans were never happy about the small furmeet growing into a “giant” formal convention, so they will get to continue to meet as a separate informal December gathering.

Update (5 Jan): The MiDFur board have picked a slate of ten convention names (from over 400 submissions), which are now open for voting.

Update (7 Jan): Voting is now closed.

Read more: MiDFur picks new name, ConFurgence; but did poll mislead?

It is no secret that the most well-known concept of unicorns is from Europe, in the Middle Ages. In stories from that time period, the creature will be a walking snorting virgin detector with a... ehem... phallic symbol on its head. The horse with one horn will be for girls, and is always male.

Enter 1968: a peculiar book comes out, the likes of which the world had never seen before. The main character is a unicorn. And it is a mare. Female. And instead of having been created by God to detect "proper maidens", she is a semi-immortal creature with a different role in the world. The story centers on her search for her kind, while exploring the concepts of emotions, immortality, and the source of the latter.

In other words, this unicorn was completely different from the existing folklore.

So how did Peter Beagle's book, and the subsequent animated adaptation, change our view of unicorns? Give us your thoughts in the comments!

How many Oz movies have there been? The Wizard of Oz (1939), of course. Return to Oz (1985). Dorothy in the Land of Oz (1980). Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz (1910), The Land of Oz (1910), His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914), and The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914), all co-written or directed by Frank Baum himself. The Wiz (1978). The Wizard of Oz (1925), the silent version with Oliver Hardy as the Tin “Woodsman”. The Witches of Oz (2011). It’s not a movie, but the Broadway musical Wicked (2003). Does Zardoz (1974) count? Well … LOTS!

Now there is Dorothy of Oz (2013?), produced by Prana Studios in Los Angeles and Mumbai with a pretty impressive voice cast.