Category Archives: Awards

Risking the Disapproval of Drusilla the Ditmar Diprotodon

Awards, Pimping

diprotodon

Some of you may remember my friend Drusilla, the Ditmar Diprotodon. This unlikely mascot from the Pleistocene era has been using my blog to spruik Australia’s national science fiction award since she stumbled into our time-stream back in 2011 or so.

Things have changed for Drusilla. She’s discovered coffee, iPads (problematic given her paws) and of course, the vibrant genre fiction scene found in her home continent. I’ve been a bit wary of disturbing her, given that she is apparently “hibernating”. I swung by her place to see if I could get anything useful out of her this year regarding the Ditmar Awards.

JF: Drusilla! Hey, hello! How are you?

DDD: [groans] What do you want? I’m sleeping.

JF: Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on that. Pleistocene-era Australia didn’t snow during winter.

DDD: What would you know? Were you THERE?

JF: Well, no.

DDD: I was. So piss off. [accepts bucket-sized coffee] Okay, you can stay.

JF: Drusilla, did you have anything to say about this year’s Ditmar Award?

DDD: Seriously dude? As if everyone hasn’t nominated yet. Here’s the hyperlink to my usual spiel, just to save everybody time [mashes iPad with her enormous paw]. Argh, I think I broke another one. Jason, can you..?

JF: Sure. Here it is (http://jasonfischer.com.au/thus-spake-drusilla-the-ditmar-diprotodon/).

DDD: I don’t really have much more to add than the usual – list as many works/people as you think are deserving of the awards. You’re not diluting your nomination by doing so – in fact, you’re ensuring a diverse ballot paper by doing so.

JF:  Thanks Drusilla. Will you – will you help pimp my stuff?

DDD: You have GOT to be kidding. I read your collection, and you didn’t even write a story about Diprotodons.

JF: Well, I mentioned them in that one story.

DDD: You mean the one where your “drop bears” used to eat us. Whatever.

JF: [hands over a bucket of Haigh’s chocolate and a new iPad]

DDD: It’s my pleasure to announce Jason Fischer’s Ditmar eligible works as follows:

Best Novella or Novelette

  • “Everything is a Graveyard”, Jason Fischer, in Everything is a Graveyard, Ticonderoga Publications.

Best Short Story

  • “Art, Ink”, Jason Fischer and Martin Livings, in Antipodean SF 180.
  • “L’Hombre”, Jason Fischer, in Everything is a Graveyard, Ticonderoga Publications.
  • “When the Cheerful Misogynist Came to True-Town”, Jason Fischer, in Everything is a Graveyard, Ticonderoga Publications.

Best Collected Work

  • Everything is a Graveyard by Jason Fischer, edited by Russell B. Farr, Ticonderoga Publications.

DDD: So here’s a (possibly incomplete) list of eligible works, to help jog your memory should you be as sketchy as Mr. Fischer:

http://wiki.sf.org.au/2014_Ditmar_eligibility_list

DDD:  And here’s the nomination form:

http://ditmars.sf.org.au/2014/nominations.html

JF: Thanks Drusilla. I’ll just be quietly leaving now.

DDD: [Eating sounds, shortly followed by snoring]

 

Australian Shadows Awards 2012

Awards,

Hot on the heels of the Aurealis shortlists, the results are now out for the 2012 Australian Shadows Awards shortlists.

http://www.australianhorror.com/index.php?view=325

Be still, my rotten undead heart, but my story “Pigroot Flat” has made the grade! I join several talented folks as a finalist in the Short Fiction category. There are some great results here, and added points to the AHWA for putting on a great online awards ceremony (and for milking the suspense just shy of a lynch mob breaking out). Well done to everybody involved in Aussie horror fiction and everyone fortunate enough to nab a finalist berth…and now for three weeks of being on tenterhooks.

2011 Australian Shadows Awards

Awards

The list of winners and honourable mentions for the 2011 Australian Shadows Awards has been released into the wild.

http://australianhorror.com/index.php?view=304

And colour me tickled pink, we’ve nabbed an Honourable Mention for our editing work on Midnight Echo #6! Huge congrats to Russ Farr for winning with Dead Red Heart, and of course these congrats are extended to all winners and HMs. Special kudos go to our authors Joanne Anderton and Andrew J McKiernan, who also got individual HMs for their Midnight Echo stories.

And massive high-fives to my co-editors, David Conyers and David Kernot 🙂 well done, chaps!

AHWA Short Story and Flash Fiction Competition 2012

Announcement, Awards, Pimping

Just a quick signal boost: Each year the Australian Horror Writers’ Association holds a short story and flash fiction contest, and this year I’m one of the judges. It’s a great little contest. Winners receive a cool engraved plaque, paid publication in the association’s magazine Midnight Echo, and bragging rights for a whole year 🙂

Entries are open till May 31st. More details here:

http://australianhorror.com/index.php?view=57

Aurealis Awards

Awards

It must be said, social networks have completely ruined my blogging mojo! Having said that, the weekend just gone was too cool to not be noted down on the ole blog [blows away dust and cobwebs].

I was recently fortunate enough to rate a Finalist spot in this year’s Aurealis Awards for the zombie-tastic “After the World: Gravesend”. The good Mrs Fisch and I chootled on over to Sydney town, where we gawked at many things like the blissful Adelaide bumpkins that we are. Once we’d had our fill of skyscrapers, bridges and unfriendly rushing Sydney types, we frocked up and caught up with a bunch of Aussie SF people in the hotel, who were grabbing some tucker before the awards themselves kicked off. It was brilliant to catch up with so many folks (and meet some correspondents for the first time) and it felt like no time had passed since the last time we’d all caught up.

The awards themselves have just been handed on from Fantastic Queensland to the new caretakers, SpecFaction. Wow, what a brilliant job you folks did! A great awards ceremony that everyone seemed to enjoy, formal but relaxed, with lots of laughs and even some shoeless award recipients. Looking at you, Slatter! Was a real honour to share the Best Horror Novel category with Kirstyn McDermott and Trent Jamieson, and a great win for Kirstyn and her stunning breakout novel “Madigan Mine” [standing ovation]. Well done!

Was a great year for local genre fiction, and the full list of winners can be found here: http://www.aurealisawards.com/winners2010.pdf 

Photos of the night can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42956650@N00/sets/72157626651871717/with/5745776642

2011 Ditmar Awards Shortlists

Awards,

I went offline for a few days, and returned to see that the 2011 Ditmar Awards Shortlists have been released into the wild. Lots of great works, and like the recent Aurealis shortlists it looks like a solid selection in all categories. Even cooler, my Writers of the Future winning short story “The House of Nameless” has been shortlisted in the Best Short Story category

Best Short Story
————————————————————————
* “All the Love in the World”, Cat Sparks (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press)
* “Bread and Circuses”, Felicity Dowker (Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)
* “One Saturday Night With Angel”, Peter M. Ball (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press)
* “She Said”, Kirstyn McDermott (Scenes From the Second Storey, Morrigan Books)
* “The House of Nameless”, Jason Fischer (Writers of the Future XXVI)
* “The February Dragon”, Angela Slatter and Lisa L. Hannett (Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)

And even better, every single person in this category is a peep or a buddy of mine, with strong samples of their writing represented in the short-list. It’s just too close to call, but the good news is, I’m gonna be happy for someone no matter what the result 🙂

The complete shortlist can be found here, and I gotta say, right across the board it’s a beauty.

http://2011.swancon.com.au/natcon-fifty-ditmar-awards/

Congratulations to everyone who rated a mention, commiserations to those who missed out. And many, many thanks to those who put my story forward in their nomination form, it’s great to know that folks enjoyed it enough to enter it into the Ditmars. The free e-book version of “The House of Nameless” can still be found here, for those attendees who are looking at their form and trying to suss out their final vote: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/43525

Thanks again! 🙂

Aurealis Awards – Finalist!

Awards,

The shortlists for this year’s Aurealis Awards have just been released into the wild, and can be read here:

http://aurealisawards.com/finalists2010.pdf

So bust out the Crayolas and colour me tickled pink, I’m a Finalist! How exciting, and somewhat humbling that my book has snuck in next to these other two amazing writers and their works:

HORROR Novel

After the World: Gravesend, Jason Fischer, Black House Comics
Death Most Definite, Trent Jamieson, Orbit (Hachette)
Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott, Pan Macmillan

Oh Gravesend, you’re the little engine that could 🙂 a huge congrats to everyone else who made this year’s shortlists. I don’t envy the work of the judges in any category, that’s one solid list.