Chimaera Publications and SpecFaction NSW are delighted to announce that the 2011 Aurealis Awards will again be organised by SpecFaction NSW and held in Sydney.

Aurealis Awards Co-convenor, Susan Wardle, said that after the success of the 2010 Awards, SpecFaction was thrilled to be back on board as the organisers of the event.

The nomination period for the 2011 Aurealis Awards is from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2011. The awards website is expected to be ready to accept entries from mid-July 2011.

The awards website is at www.aurealisawards.com.

Queries can be addressed to convenors@aurealisawards.com.

If you wish to register an interest in being on a judging panel please email the Judging Coordinator at judges@aurealisawards.com.

The winners of the 2010 Aurealis Awards, sponsored by HarperVoyager, were announced at a gala event in Sydney on 21st of May.  There were around 600 entries across the thirteen categories.  This year's winners joined the role call of past winners such as Garth Nix, Isobelle Carmody, Sara Douglass, Shaun Tan, Trudi Canavan and Sean Williams.

 

CHILDREN'S FICTION (told primarily through words)
·      The Keepers, Lian Tanner, Allen & Unwin

 

CHILDREN'S FICTION (told primarily through pictures)
·      The Boy and the Toy,  Sonya Hartnett (writer) & Lucia Masciullo (illustrator), Penguin Viking

 

YOUNG ADULT Short Story
·      A Thousand Flowers, Margo Lanagan, Zombies and Unicorns, Allen & Unwin

 

YOUNG ADULT Novel
·      Guardian of the Dead, Karen Healey, Allen & Unwin

 

BEST Illustrated Book/ Graphic Novel
·      Changing Ways Book 1, Justin Randall, Gestalt Publishing

 

BEST COLLECTION
·      The Girl With No Hands, Angela Slatter, Ticonderoga Publications

 

BEST ANTHOLOGY
·      Wings of Fire, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Marianne S. Jablon, Night Shade Books

 

HORROR Short Fiction
·      The Fear, Richard Harland, Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears, Brimstone Press

 

HORROR Novel
·      Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott, Pan Macmillan
 
FANTASY Short Story (joint winners)
·      The February Dragon, LL Hannett & Angela Slatter, Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications
·      Yowie, Thoraiya Dyer, Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press

 

FANTASY Novel
·      Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts, HarperVoyager (HarperCollins)

 

SCIENCE FICTION Short Story
·      The Heart of a Mouse, K.J. Bishop, Subterranean Online (Winter 2010)

 

SCIENCE FICTION Novel
·      Transformation Space, Marianne de Pierres, Orbit (Hachette)

You would think it is impossible to top getting an Oscar, but Shaun Tan has managed it by winning the world's richest children's literature award, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (worth 5m kroner or A$765,000).  As a comparison, the Man Booker International Prize is worth a mere A$93,620!  The decision to give him the award was anonymous.  The prize (like the Nobel prize) is given for a body of work.  (Who knows, the judges may have looked at the great work he did for Aurealis.)

The winners of this year's Aurealis Awards and the Peter McNamara Award will be announced in Sydney at the Aurealis Awards ceremony, sponsored by Harper Voyager, on the evening of Saturday the 21st of May. Details of the evening and a link to the online booking website are available at www.aurealisawards.com.  Early bird tickets are available for $29 per person until 16 April.  The venue's maximun seating capacity is 300, so make sure you don't miss out.  The night will begin with the HarperVoyager cocktail party at 6.30.  The after party (venue to be announced at the ceremony) will start at 10.00.  Dress is formal/cocktail.  Come and join us in a celebration of Australian speculative fiction.

SpecFaction NSW, organisers of the this year's Aurealis Awards have announced the finalists.  See http://www.aurealisawards.com/finalists2010.pdf.

Chimaera Publications congratulates Shaun Tan on winning the Academy Award for best animated short film with The Lost Thing.  We are proud to say Shaun's professional career started here, with his first cover for Aurealis in October 1990 for issue #2.  He went on to contribute covers, internal illustrations and graphics for a number of years, defining the look of Aurealis for over a decade.

The following Shaun Tan issues are still in stock (most limited): #2 (cover), #3 (cover), #4 (cover and internals, including one for the classic Michael Pryor story, "Softly They Go Feral in the Night"), #5 (all internals), #7 (cover and internals), #9 (internals), #10 (internals), #12 (cover and internals), #14 (internals), #15 (internals), #17 (cover and internals), #19 (internals) #22 (internals), #23 (internals), #25/26 (internals).  Issues #5 to #27/28 (October 2001) all featured internal graphics by Shaun Tan.

The following Shaun Tan issues are out of stock (with only 1 or 2 copies avalaible for bids from collectors): #6 (internals), #8 (internals), #11 (internals), #13 (cover and internals) and #20/21 (cover and internals).

With the retirement of current editor, Stuart Mayne, the publishers of Aurealis, are taking the opportunity to restructure and improve the magazine.  The new look Aurealis will be in place by the end of 2011.  In the meantime, AurealisXpress, our monthly e-bulletin for subscribers, will continue.   We will be open for story submissions again around the middle of the year.  Updates will be published in AurealisXpress and on this website.  All orders (books, back issues etc) will continue to be processed as usual.

With Stuart Mayne deciding to concentrate on other projects, the publishers of Aurealis are looking for an editor or editorial team to take over.  If you wish to express interest, please send your CV and an outline of what plans or future directions you may have for Aurealis to Dirk Strasser at the email address: publisher <at> aurealis <dot> com <dot> au.

To reiterate the news item of 6 December: office hours will be severely reduced over the summer school holidays. The editor will be on prolonged child minding duties. From 17 December 2010 to 6 February 2011 the office will be open only intermittently, affecting email response times and order shipment.

It will be impossible to read submissions during this time, so the editor is closing the office to ALL submissions over this time. Any submissions delivered during this period will be deleted unread. Submissions open again from 7 February 2011.

Happy summer!