Tag: Ditmars

Ditmar eligibility 2014

The Ditmar awards are the Australian national awards for speculative fiction that are voted on by members of the speculative fiction community. The awards are usually attached to the National Convention, which is being held this year in Melbourne at Continuum X.

The nomination process for the 2014 Ditmars is open until 30th March, and can be found at this online form.

Follow the following link to a wiki site that contains a pretty comprehensive list of works that are eligible for the Ditmars. Well worth a look if you’re stuck trying to remember what culture you consumed last year.

Some artists agonise over whether to publicise their own eligibility for awards, concerned that it may be considered crude and self serving by the community at large. I hold no such sensibilities, so here goes.

Best Short Story

I have two stories that are eligible under the short story category:

You can still read both stories online in the Antipodean SF archive site – just follow the links.

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

Last year I was lucky enough to be involved with Galactic Chat, a podcast which interviews people involved in the Australian speculative fiction scene. It was (and continues to be) a great experience. Sean Wright is the anchor that holds the podcast together, and I’d love to see him (and all my podcast colleagues) get acknowledged for the work that they do.

  • Galactic Chat Podcast, Sean Wright, Alex Pierce, Helen Stubbs, David McDonald, Mark Webb and Sarah Parker

Best Fan Writer

Well, theoretically you could nominate me for this award as well. But I’ve been looking through the eligibility list and frankly there are a lot more talented, and prolific, fan writers out there. But for completeness:

William Atheling Jr Award for Review or Criticism

I was quite happy with my reviews as a part of the 2013 Australian Women Writers’ Reading Challenge. So, if you wanted to nominate me for anything here:

That’s about it for my contributions to the field in 2013, meagre as they were. Stand by for more posts about excellent stuff I’ve seen and enjoyed elsewhere in the Australian scene. And get voting!

So… many… award… lists…

Work has kept me a bit busy over the last couple of weeks, so I haven’t had a lot of time to add to the blog. In that time, three different sets of Australian award nominations have come out (in chronological order of release):

  1. 2012 Aurealis Awards
  2. 2012 Australian Shadow Awards
  3. 2013 Ditmars

I’m not going to repeat all the nominations here (follow the links above), but I did want to draw out a few highlights.

Firstly, Kirstyn McDermott and Jason Nahrung have cemented their place as the Australian speculative fiction writing power couple by securing nominations in all three awards. In previous posts I’ve expressed my love for their recent work, Perfections, Blood and Dust and Salvage. All three appear in this year’s awards, which is especially impressive considering Perfections and Blood and Dust were only released just before Christmas 2012.

Secondly, Sean Wright (or Sean the Bookonaut) is up for several Ditmars in the fan writing/publications sections. Sean is an excellent contributor to the Australian speculative fiction scene, made even more impressive by the fact that he does it all from a secret (1) rural South Australian location with dodgy internet connections. If you’ve not come across his work before, it is well worth your time to track down his site and podcast.

Thirdly, Antipodean SF (who published a few of my flash fiction pieces last year) are up for best fan publication in the Ditmars. It is amazing how many established writers I talk to who say “Oh, yes – Antipodean SF is where I got my first story published”. Ion Newcombe is an excellent editor and generous contributor to the Australian speculative fiction scene. If you’ve never seen Antipodean SF, I’d encourage you to check the site out. (2)

Finally, I really enjoyed Kaaron Warren‘s collection Through Splintered Walls last year. I can see the stories from this book (and the collection itself) sprinkled all through these awards list. A fantastic book, well worth checking out.

I’ve decided that after I’ve finished my current reading, I’m going to make a concerted effort to plug some of the gaps in my Australian reading using these award lists as a guide. What about you? Have you read much of the work doing the rounds in this year’s awards season? Anything stand out?

 

(1) The secret thing may not be entirely factually accurate

(2) I help out preparing the e-Book edition of Antipodean SF each month, so I’m not entirely without bias here.

Round up of Ditmar posts

As outlined in a previous post, the Ditmars (Australia’s national speculative fiction awards) are open for nominations for works created in 2012. As well as relying on the excellent Ditmar eligibility wiki, I’ve been keeping track of posts by people I follow around the inter-web as they outline their Ditmar eligibility. If you want a bit more information on any of the authors, publishers and commentators listed below, click through for eligibility goodness (they are listed in the order I came across them). (1)

I’ll be updating this list as more information comes to hand, so be sure to return to the post that is all Ditmar all the time. If you know of any other Ditmar eligibility lists out there, comment below or send through an email with the details and I’ll add it to the list!

Also there are a lot of authors and other creators whose work I’ve enjoyed over the last year but who have not yet published an eligibility list on their blogs. I personally like it when people summarise their award eligibility. Hint, hint.

Notes:

(1) inclusion on this list does not imply any endorsement by me. Hell, I haven’t read half the stuff listed above (too many good things out there for one person to get through in any given year). Just trying to keep track of who is posting about what. Think of this post as a community service.

(2) Simon Petrie has also posted a list of other lists related to the Ditmars, which includes a link to this list. As well as other lists. Which I think makes this a list of lists of posts, as well as a list of posts, to do with the Ditmars.

I’m not sure it can take another layer of recursion.