Nice Things

Power and Majesty is now both an Aurealis Awards shortlisted book AND a Ditmar shortlisted book. How awesome is that?

I'm also rather pleased to be on fan shortlists for my Modern Woman's Guide To Classic Who blog posts, and especially for Galactic Suburbia. How exciting! The Fan Production category has turned into a podcastapalooza which is marvellous (the only non podcast there is ASiF, another project I love). Listening to podcasts has become one of my primary interactions with fandom and criticism, and it's really special to see the Year of Aussie SF Podcasts honoured in that shortlist.

In other news, some of my favourite fiction from last year is on the shortlists too! I loved Trent's book, and all the other novel nominees are teetering near the top of my To Read pile. I'm glad to see Cat Sparks' "All The Love In The World" on there, which was one of my favourite Aussie stories last year. Nice also that Thoraiya Dyer's "The Company Articles of Edward Teach" made it on, as it was a very late release in 2010 and I thought people would miss how great it was. Thoraiya made Best New Talent, too, which I wanted to see last year, though admittedly I was in the position of having read some of the great stories she hadn't published yet. Since then she's not only had some good stuff published for Twelfth Planet Press but also sold a story to pro market Cosmos! Looking down the lists, there are people I love and respect all over these Ditmars. How wonderful!

Congratulations to all the nominees. I look forward to seeing most of you at Swancon for the ceremony!

In other Nice Things News, a few reviews have flitted past my screen this week: a very thoughtful review analysis of Power and Majesty (it's so nice when readers completely get what I was doing with my characters, and I love how she described Ashiol as being a Bruce Wayne type) and a nice little teaser review of "Relentless Adaptations" from Sprawl.

Full Ditmar Ballot below:

Best Novel

Death Most Definite, Trent Jamieson (Hachette)
Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott (Pan Macmillan)
Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Voyager)
Stormlord Rising, Glenda Larke (Voyager)
Walking the Tree, Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot Books)
No Award

Best Novella or Novelette

"Acception", Tessa Kum (Eneit Press)
"All the Clowns in Clowntown", Andrew McKiernan (Brimstone Press)
"Bleed", Peter M. Ball (Twelfth Planet Press)
"Her Gallant Needs", Paul Haines (Twelfth Planet Press)
"The Company Articles of Edward Teach", Thoraiya Dyer (Twelfth Planet Press)
No Award

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 the Nameless", Jason Fischer (Writers of the Future XXVI)
"The February Dragon", Angela Slatter and Lisa L. Hannett (Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)
No Award

Best Collected Work

Baggage, edited by Gillian Polack (Eneit Press)
Macabre: A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis and Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
Scenes from the Second Storey, edited by Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall (Morrigan Books)
Sprawl, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
Worlds Next Door, edited by Tehani Wessely (FableCroft Publishing)
No Award

Best Artwork

Cover art, The Angaelien Apocalypse/The Company Articles of Edward Teach (Twelfth Planet Press), Dion Hamill
Cover art, Australis Imaginarium (FableCroft Publishing), Shaun Tan
Cover art, Dead Sea Fruit (Ticonderoga Publications), Olga Read
Cover art, The Girl With No Hands (Ticonderoga Publications), Lisa L. Hannett
"The Lost Thing" short film (Passion Pictures), Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan
No Award

Best Fan Writer

Robert Hood, for Undead Backbrain
Chuck McKenzie, for work in Horrorscope
Alexandra Pierce, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus
Tehani Wessely, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus
No Award

Best Fan Artist

Rachel Holkner, for Continuum 6 props
Dick Jenssen, for cover art of Interstellar Ramjet Scoop
Amanda Rainey, for Swancon 36 logo
No Award

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, edited by Alisa Krasnostein et al.
Bad Film Diaries podcast, Grant Watson
Galactic Suburbia podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce
Terra Incognita podcast, Keith Stevenson
The Coode Street podcast, Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan
The Writer and the Critic podcast, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond
No Award

Best Achievement

Helen Merrick and Andrew Milner, Academic Stream for Aussiecon 4
Amanda Rainey, cover design for Scary Kisses
Kyla Ward, Horror Stream and The Nightmare Ball for Aussiecon 4
Grant Watson, Media Stream for Aussiecon 4
Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, Rachel Holkner, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wessely, Snapshot 2010
No Award

Best New Talent

Thoraiya Dyer
Lisa L. Hannett
Patty Jansen
Kathleen Jennings
Pete Kempshall
No Award

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review

Leigh Blackmore, for Marvels and Horrors: Terry Dowling's Clowns at Midnight
Damien Broderick, for editing Skiffy and Mimesis: More Best of Australian Science Fiction Review
Ross Murray, for The Australian Dream Becomes Nightmare
Tansy Rayner Roberts, for A Modern Woman's Guide to Classic Who
No Award