The trailer to Ian Irvine's latest children's book about Runcible Jones can now be viewed on YouTube. This trailer was created by Ian's son, Simon. Most book trailers are pretty ordinary but a lot of effort into this one.

 

Shaun Tan's amazing book The Arrival continues to pick up award after award. Not content with a 2006 Aurealis Award, The Arrival has also picked up shortlistings and awards in the following:

Shortlisted, APA Design Awards Year: 2007 Prize: Best Designed Childrens Picture Book
Winner, Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Year: 2007 Prize: WA Premier's Award and Children's Prize
Winner, Book Data/ABA Book of the Year Year: 2007 Prize: Book of the Year for Older Children
Shortlisted, Children's Book of the Year Awards Year: 2007 Prize: Picture Book of the Year
Winner, NSW Premier's literary award Year: 2007 Prize: Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature and Book of the Year.

And now The Arrival has picked up Australian Book of the year for Older Children from the Australian Book Industry Awards.

All of us associated with Aurealis magazine would like to congratulate Shaun for his wonderful achievements.

David Conyers has become the first Australian to have his Cthulhu novel published in the United States by Chaosium Inc. The Cthulhu Mythos was made famous by horror author H P Lovecraft.

The Spiralling Worm is a series of interlinked stories of two government agents fighting the cosmic horros and alien monsters that Lovecraft created. David said, "One aspect of The Spiralling Worm that I'm proud of is that my protagonist, Major Harrison Peel, is a Royal Australian Army intelligence Officer, transposed into a gloal setting. Chaosium were very suppostive of keeping him as an Australian character, when they could so easily adapted him as an American character."

David has been making a name for himself recently with his science fiction and horror writing, being nominated for Aurealis and Ditmar awards. A recent science fiction story has been nominated for the Irish Aeon Awards.

 

Hachette Australia recently announced that Bernadette Foley had been appointed the Publisher of the new  Orbit Australia science fiction and fantasy imprint. At this stage it appears that Hachette Australia’s policy remains that all manuscript submissions must be submitted via a literary agent.

Read Tim Holman, Publishing Director, on Orbit in Australia. Tim is based in Orbit's New York offices. He is responsible for the imprint worldwide.

 

Will Elliot’s Aurealis Award winning novel, The Pilo Family Circus (ABC Books), and Terry Dowling’s Basic Black collection (Cemetery Dance Publications) have made the International Horror Guild Awards Short List to be presented at the World Fantasy Convention in New York on 1 November.

Sophie Masson is writing a guest blog spot this week on the Good Reading website. It is about the problems writers face creating villans that don't break PC rules – prompted by and article and speech by Anthony Horowitz. Obviously once Sophie starting blogging she couldn't stop!

http://www.goodreadingmagazine.com.au/blog/index.cfm

 

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees for the 2007 Ditmar Awards.

The presentation of the Ditmar Awards, for work published in the previous calendar year (2006), was held Saturday 9th June, at Convergence 2, the 46th National SF Convention.

Novel

• Carnies. Martin Livings, Lothian
• Prismatic. Edwina Grey, Lothian
• The Mother. Brett McBean, Lothian
• The Pilo Family Circus. Will Elliot, ABC Books (W)
• The Silver Road. Grace Dugan, Penguin

Novella/Novelette

• Aftermath. David Conyers, Agog! Ripping Reads, Agog! Press
• The Dead of Winter. Stephen Dedman, Weird Tales, #339
• The Devil in Mr Pussy (Or how I found God inside my wife). Paul Haines, C0ck, Couer de Lion Publishing (W)
• The Souls of Dead Soldiers are for Blackbirds, Not Little Boys. Ben Peek, Agog! Ripping Reads, Agog! Press
• Under the Red Sun. Ben Peek, Fantasy Magazine #4, Prime Books
• World’s Whackiest Upper Atmosphere Re-Entry Disasters Dating Game. Brendan Duffy, Agog! Ripping Reads, Agog! Press
• (Fifth place nomination a tie)

Short Story

• Burning from the Inside. Paul Haines, Doorways for the Dispossessed, Prime Books
• Cold. Kirstyn McDermott, Shadowed Realms #9
• Honeymoon. Adam Browne and John Dixon, C0ck, Couer de Lion Publishing
• Surrender 1: Rope Artist. Deborah Biancotti, Shadowed Realms #9
• The Bat's Boudoir. Kyla Ward, Shadowed Realms #9
• The Fear of White. Rjurik Davidson, Borderlands #7 (W)
• (Fifth place nomination a tie)

Collected Work

• Agog! Ripping Reads edited by Cat Sparks. Agog! Press
• C0ck edited by Keith Stevenson & Andrew Macrae
• Doorways for the Dispossessed edited by Paul Haines and Geoffrey Maloney, Prime Books
• The Year’s Best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Vol.2 edited by Bill Congreve & Michelle Marquardt, Mirrordanse Books (W)
• Eidolon I edited by Jonathan Strahan and Jeremy Byrne, Eidolon Books

Artwork

• 26Lies/1Truth, cover art by Andrew MacRae, Wheatland Press (W)
• Agog! Ripping Reads, cover art by Cat Sparks, Agog! Press
• Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century cover art by Cat Sparks, Wesleyan University Press
• The Devoured Earth, cover art by Greg Bridges, HarperCollins Press
• The Arrival, cover art by Shaun Tan, Lothian

Fan Writer

• Stephanie Gunn
• Shane Jiraiya Cummings
• Danny Oz (W)
• Miranda Siemienowicz
• Mark Smith-Briggs
• Matthew Tait
• (Fifth place nomination a tie)

Fan Artist

• Christopher Johnstone
• Jon Swabey (W)

Fan Production

• ASif website, Alisa Krasnostein – Executive Editor (W)
• Inkspillers website, Tony Plank
• Outland, Directed by John Richards
• Tabula Rasa website, David Carroll
• The Bullsheet website & ezine, Edwina Harvey & Ted Scribner

Fanzine

• AntipodeanSF, editor Ion Newcombe
• ASIF – Australian Specfic in Focus, editor Alisa Krasnostein
• The Captain's Log, Austrek clubzine. Edited by Clare McDonald
• Ethel the Aardvark, MSFC clubzine
• HorrorScope, editor Shane Jiraiya Cummings (W)

Professional Achievement

• Angelia Challis for establishing Brimstone Press as a mass market publisher
• Bill Congreve for Mirrordanse Press and 2 issues of the Australian Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (W)
• Russell B Farr for Ticonderoga Publications
• Gary Kemble for work on ABC’s Articulate and promoting the genre through radio and other mediums
• Alisa Krasnostein for providing new paying markets for readers and writers of both fiction/ non fiction, art as well as forums for reviews/interviews within the speculative fiction genre, enhancing the profile of Australian speculative fiction.
• Justine Larbalestier, for editing Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century

Fan Achievement

• Marty Young for his work establishing and promoting the Australian Horror Writers Association
• Alisa Krasnostein for establishing ASIf (W)
• Tony Plank for establishing and maintaining the Inkspillers website

New Talent

• Stephanie Campisi
• David Conyers
• Shane Jiraiya Cummings
• Alisa Krasnostein (W)
• Brett McBean

The William Atheling Jr Award

• Miranda Siemienowicz for her review of Paraspheres appearing in Horrorscope
• Justine Larbalestier for Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (W)
• Robert Hood for Man and Super-Monster: A History of Daikaiju Eiga and its Metaphorical Undercurrents. Borderlands #7
• Grant Watson for Bad Film Diaries – Sink or Swim: The Truth Behind Waterworld. Borderlands #8
• Kathryn Linge for her review Through Soft Air, ASif

    Ron Serdiuk has been announced as the new director of the Aurealis Awards for 2007. Ron began his career as bookseller with Galaxy Bookshop in Sydney before joining the sales division of HarperCollins, Scholastic and the National Gallery of Australia. In 1995 he opened his own bookshop, Pulp Fiction, in Brisbane which specialises in science fiction. fantasy, horror and crime fiction. Pulp Fiction sponsors the Golden Aurealis Award.

 

Sophie Masson, prolific fanasy author and aurealis contributor, has started a new blog for her new younger readers fantasy series – the Thomas Trew series. It's intended to give extra information on the series and to provide a contact point with readers. Sophie says, "It's a bit of an experiment, so we'll see how it goes!"

 

Expressions of interest are being sought for two positions as Director and Assistant Director of the 2007 Aurealis Awards. Information on the positions can be found on the Aurealis Awards website.