conjecture

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now listen here

Keith Stevenson has kindly made a podcast of my short story Smoking, Waiting for the Dawn, at Terra Incognita. It’s up now. The story is the latest in a monthly series that includes Sean Williams reading an unpublished short story and Cat Sparks reading her The Bride Price. I’m looking forward to next month’s story, by Trent Jamieson.

Smoking … was published in Dreaming Again last year. The collection won a Ditmar (for best collection) at the National Science Fiction Convention in Adelaide earlier this month. Cat Sparks also won a Ditmar, and Sean Williams was deservedly awarded the Peter McNamara award for being an all-round awesome dude. This year’s Ditmars were hard to fault, in fact, with very deserving winners across the board. I was quite chuffed to see Rob Hood, Margo Lanagan and Kirstyn McDermott land theirs, and took delight in the awarding of the William Atheling Jnr award for criticism or review go to Kim Wilkins for a superb, scholarly article about genre bias. The full list of winners can be read here.

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Ditmars announced

So the Ditmar nominations have been announced. How Alison Goodman’s Aurealis-winning Two Pearls of Wisdom failed to garner a best novel nomination is beyond me. Well, not really. Clearly, she needs more voting blocs in her corner.

Here’s the list posted by the committee (with, I hope, the original typos and misspellings corrected; apologies if I’ve missed any) that will be voted on by members of the natcon in Adelaide next month (with members of last year’s also eligible). I’ve got a bunch of pals on this list. I hope they do well.

Best Novel
———-
Fivefold, Nathan Burrage
Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch, Simon Haynes
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan
How to Ditch Your Fairy, Justine Larbalestier
Daughters of Moab, Kim Westwood
Earth Ascendant, Sean Williams

Best Novella
———–
Soft Viscosity, David Conyers
Night Heron’s Curse, Thoraiya Dyer
Angel Rising, Dirk Flinthart
Creeping in Reptile Flesh, Robert Hood
Painlessness, Kirstyn McDermott

Best Short Story
—————
Pale Dark Soldier, Deb Biancotti
This Is Not My Story, Dirk Flinthart
The Goosle, Margo Lanagan
Her Collection of Intimacy, Paul Haines
Moments of Dying, Rob Hood
Sammarynda Deep, Cat Sparks
Ass-Hat Magic Spider, Scott Westerfeld

Best Collected Work
——————
Dreaming Again, edited Jack Dann
Canterbury 2100, edited Dirk Flinthart
2012, edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne
Midnight Echo, edited by Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond
Black: Australian Dark Culture Magazine, edited Angela Challis
Creeping In Reptile Flesh, Robert Hood
The Starry Rift, edited Jonathan Strahan

Best Artwork
————
Aurealis #40 cover, Adam Duncan
The Last Realm, Book 1 – Dragonscarpe, Michael Dutkiewics
gallery in Black Box, Andrew McKiernan
Creeping In Reptile Flesh cover, Cat Sparks
Cover of 2012, Cat Sparks
Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun Tan

Best Fan Writer
————–
Craig Bezant for Horrorscope
Edwina Harvey for Australian Science Fiction Bullsheet
Rob Hood for Undead Backbrain
Chuck McKenzie for Horrorscope
Mark Smith-Briggs for Horrorscope
Brenton Tonlinson, Horrorscope

Best Fan Artist
————–
Rachel Holkner, for Gumble Soft toy and other works
Nancy Lorenz for body of work
Andrew McKiernan for body of work
Tansy Rayner Roberts for Daleks are a girl’s best friend
David Schembri for body of work
Cat Sparks for Scary Food Cookbook
Anna Tambour, Box of Noses and other works

Best Fan Publication
——————
Horrorscope, Brimstone Press
Scary Food Cookbook, edited by Cat Sparks
Asif! (Australian Speculative Fiction In Focus)
Australian SF Bullsheet

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
———————————————-
Dark Suspense: The End of the Line by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (in
Black: Australian Dark Culture Magazine #3)
George A. Romero: Master of the Living Dead by Robert Hood (in Black:
Australian Dark Culture Magazine #2)
Bad Film Diaries – Sometimes the Brand Burns: Tim Burton and the
Planet of the Apes, Grant Watson (in Borderlands #10)
“Popular genres and the Australian literary community: the case of
fantasy fiction,” Journal of Australian Studies, Kim Wilkins

Best Achievement
—————-
Angela Challis for Black: Australian Dark Culture Magazine and Brimstone Press.
Marty Young and the AHWA Committe for promoting horror through the
Australian Horror Writers Association
Talie Helene for her work as AHWA News Editor
Steve Clark for Tasmaniac Productions
Damien Broderick for fiction editing in Cosmos Magazine
James Doig for preserving colonial Australian horror fiction and his
anthologies Australian Gothic and Australian Nightmares.
The Gunny Project: A tribute to Ian Gunn 1959-1998, Jocko and K’Rin,
presented MSFC

Best New Talent
—————
Peter M. Ball
Felicity Dowker
Jason Fischer
Gary Kemble
Amanda Pillar

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Booked in Bundaberg

I’m excited to say that I’ll be joining some excellent writers at Bundaberg Library’s Booked program in May. Stephanie Laurens, Kirsty Brooks and Kim Michelle Toft will be sharing the love and angst at panels, chats and, I believe, over lunch. I grew up in the Wide Bay region and still have good friends in Bundy, so it’s a bit of a return to my old stomping grounds, bringing some Gothic vampire love with me 🙂
Booked is on Sunday, May 17, conveniently dovetailing with Writefest the day before, run by Bundaberg Writers Club. So I’ll be popping in there for a look-see, too. Sue Abbey is among the professionals running workshops at Writefest: I can’t speak highly enough of her skills and friendly advice.
Two other events worth noting: the mob organising the national science fiction convention, Conjecture, in Adelaide in June have extracted their digit and posted more information on the website, allaying mounting fears that the long period of silence heralded a fizzler. Mind you, with that many wineries within cork-popping distance, that was never really going to be an issue, was it?
Another cool event that has got cooler is Continuum, in Melbourne in August, where Melbourne writer Narelle M Harris has been added as a guest of honour. Harris has had a vampire novel published by Brisbane’s Pulp Fiction Press; they make a commendable team 🙂
The other key convention for spec fic writers and readers this year is Conflux, in Canberra in October, but unfortunately I won’t be making that. Rather I’ll be at my Edge writers group’s annual retreat, hoping to make something beautiful come of it.