Given I’m not the most prolific of writers, it does mean a great deal when one of my sporadic publications gets nominated for an award. So a toast to Cruel Nights, and moreso to those fans who cared enough to get it onto the ballot in the ‘best novella’ category in the Ditmar awards.

The Ditmars are nominated and awarded by popular vote (the latter restricted to members of various conventions), so it was great to see the novella make the cut alongside some seriously heavy hitters in the genre field, being:

‘Shattered’ by Pauline Yates
‘The Emporium’ by Kaaron Warren
‘Wilder’ by Pamela Jeffs
‘Ghost of the Neon God’ by T. R. Napper
‘Maleficium’ by Kyla Lee Ward.

The winner will be announced at Conflux, Canberra’s speculative fiction convention, in October.

The full list of finalists is at the Conflux website.

It’s worth mentioning that it’s a bunch of volunteers who make conventions and awards happen. They should take a bow for pumping this energy into the scene.