Many congrats to this year’s winners of the Ditmar and Hugo Awards! A great year for SF and Australian SF in particular, and it was great to see many folks I admire walking away with well-deserved trophies. Congrats to everyone of course, but special kudos go out to Peter M Ball, Cat Sparks, Robert Hood and Paul Haines, you bunch of magnificent bastards.
A real shame I missed the party in Melbourne, looks like the Worldcon was great fun 🙁 sigh. Apparently a bunch of mags and anthos got launched on the weekend, and I’m watching my mail-box with bated breath, especially for the Fisch-based zombie kangaroo that graces the cover of ASIM #46.
So here I am, unpacked and somewhat caught up on sleep. I have returned from my epic adventure to the USA and honestly? My head is still spinning from the awesomeness of the week just gone. I figure it’s best to just get everything down as I think of it; I know I’ve always enjoyed reading the accounts of previous WOTF winners, and found it inspiring. I’d read these posts and put my head down, determined, sending these guys one solid story every quarter. Perhaps someone will find this account helpful, somewhat amusing, or a cautionary tale. I’ve littered this account with what photos I had the presence of mind to take.
(I know it’s traditional for many folks to recount their WOTF experience day-by-day, but that’s not how I roll. It’s all melded together at this stage anyways)
Caught between a rock and a Hard Rock place…given the opportunity of a lifetime I still managed to squeeze in the odd tourist moment.
Once more I stand on antipodean shores, and the Writers of the Future week is officially over. And what a week it was! I had the time of my life. Still feeling a bit jetlagged, and there are many things I shall retrospectively blog about, but I need to rest, collect my thoughts, and get some photos off my camera. In the meantime, the awards ceremony itself can now be viewed online – for your convenience, here tis!
Not sure where my speech is exactly in this clip, but it’s towards the end of things. What an incredible night! More soon.
Oscar Wilde, 1882, to US Customs: “I have nothing to declare but my genius”
Jason Fischer, 2010, to US Customs: “I have nothing to declare but my Tim-Tams”
So here I am, and barring the wonders of jetlag it’s AWESOME. I’m definitely going to have to do some retrospective blogging to cover our goings on, it’s quite the hectic schedule we’ve been given. KD Wentworth and Tim Powers are nothing but brilliant, and have been dishing out some life-changing advice.
Part of which was, don’t faff around on the internet, you have to hand in a complete story within 24 hours. So a quick gudday and seeya later! 🙂
The lovely folks organising the WOTF week are blogging both the workshops here, complete with photos:
Well, the time is nigh, I have my greenbacks and courage in hand, and Writers of the Future awaits me. I’m taking it stateside for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to work with some jaw-droppingly awesome writers, attend the award gala, and finally meet my fellow contest winners (who seem like a lovely and talented bunch). The anthology containing the winning stories is now available for pre-order on Amazon:
I love the cover-art on this – absolutely gorgeous! Having collected a few of these anthologies, I can tell you that the essays from the judges are worth the cover-price alone. Years of wisdom is thus dispensed, sandwiched amidst stories that could launch many fruitful writing careers, jammed full of the excellent artwork from the sister contest, Illustrators of the Future.
Still can’t believe my writing is actually in one of these…this sure is a nice feeling, folks 🙂
I will try and blog the Writers of the Future week when I get the chance, but it looks like they keep a pretty hectic schedule. It may be a retrospective account of the workshop and other events, but it’ll all end up on here at some point.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Future needs getting to 🙂
