As part of our twenty-fifth-year birthday celebration in 2015, we will be publishing our all-time top twenty-five Aurealis stories in our Best of Aurealis anthology both in print and as an eBook. As one of the first steps we are now asking you to vote for what you consider the best three of the twenty Aurealis stories first published in our epublication form in 2011 and 2012. Please make sure your choices are registered by the 25th of April, 2014. Stay tuned for more updates on opportunities to influence which stories will be selected.

 

To celebrate @AurealisMag hitting 500 followers on Twitter, we’re giving away 5 back-issues of Aurealis (#50, #56, #57, #58 & #59) for FREE until 5pm Wednesday, February 12th AEDT.  Get the issues from:

http://aurealisblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/a-massive-hooray-to-you/

To celebrate reaching 500 Likes on the Aurealis Facebook Page, we’re going to make 5 issues of Aurealis (#51, #52, #53, #54 & #55) FREE for 24 HOURS starting from 5.00pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) Monday 13 January and finishing 5.00pm (AEDT) on Tuesday 14 January.  Grab the issues from here:

http://aurealisblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/a-big-thank-you-to-you/

 

Tangent, the genre's premiere review magazine for short SF & Fantasy, has listed ten Aurealis stories in its 2013 Recommended Reading List, including two with 2 stars and one with 3 stars.  With very few exceptions, the other stories on the list are from professionally paying markets as defined by SFWA (5c/wd). Here are the Aurealis stories that made the list:

 

 “Monday-Child” by C.S. McMullen (Aurealis #57, 2/13)) F

 

“Where Colossi Sleep” by Daniel Baker (Aurealis #57, 2/13) SF*

 

“Catspaw” by James Bradley (Aurealis #60 5/13) F**

 

“Kernel” by Sean Monaghan (Aurealis #61, 6/13) SF

 

“Remnants” by Dan Rabarts (Aurealis #62, 7/13) F*

 

“The Pillar of the Small God” by Gerry Huntman (Aurealis #63, 8/13) SF*

 

“Prophet” by Liam Pieper (Aurealis #63, 8/13) SF*

 

“Intelligent Design” by Marta Salek (Aurealis #64, 9/13) SF***

 

“Poppies” by S G Larner (Aurealis #65, 10/13) F*

 

“Butcher’s Hook” by Jason Franks (Aurealis #65, 10/13) F**

  

Subscriptions for Aurealis 2014 are now open. To subscribe to Australia's longest-running Fantasy and SF magazine, go to the Subscriptions page (see menu above).

Submissions for consideration are closed until February.

Aurealis #64, which has just been published, created a furious controversy among the Aurealis editors.  The first story,  Penny Stirling's 'Love Over Glass, Skin Under Glass', will no doubt split our readership's opinion.  The second one, Marta Salek's 'Intelligent Design', will also lead to some arguments. Read this issue and make your own mind up.

This month's Aurealis #63 brings on the aliens with Gerry Huntman's 'The Pillar of the Small God', an alien contact story featuring communication problems with an intriguing race, and a translating device that doesn't work perfectly. And Liam Pieper’s 'Prophet' provides the sort of world-within-a-world-within-a-world immersion that you may never disentangle yourself from. Download it now.

 

Yes the New Issue is out now! Lots of news, reviews and great stories. Subscribe now for your 10 issues a year! 

After 18 years the Aurealis Awards, Australia's premier awards for speculative fiction, finally make it to the nation’s capital.  The owner of the Aurealis Awards, Chimaera Publications – the publishers of the Aurealis magazine and book imprint – have reached agreement for Conflux Inc to administer the Awards for the next two years.

The Awards’ founder, Dirk Strasser says, “SpecFaction NSW took the Aurealis Awards to new levels of professionalism during its three years in Sydney, and the energy, enthusiasm and experience in the Conflux team indicates the awards will be raised to even greater heights.  With Canberra now joining past hosts Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, we can truly claim the Aurealis Awards as fully national.”

Conflux Inc President Nicole Murphy said Canberra and the Aurealis Awards would be a great match. "Conflux has always had the support and promotion of Australian writing as an important part of our charter, and we're delighted to be hosting Australia's premier speculative fiction awards," she said. "Canberra has a long history of involvement with science fiction and we're going to do everything we can to make the coming ceremonies match up to that history."

Currently the awards are calling for expressions of interest from potential judges. Information can be found at the Aurealis Awards website www.aurealisawards.com. Judging is open to any Australian with a love for speculative fiction and a willingness to read and judge the best works published this year.

For further information see: 

www.aurealisawards.com

president.conflux@gmail.com

www.conflux.org.au

With the last ever AurealisXpress e-bulletin hitting In-boxes in April, we're offering all current and past AurealisXpress subscribers a once-only special offer.  If you take out a 2013 Aurealis subscription before 30 April, we’ll give you all ten 2012 Aurealis issues for FREE.  That way you can continue to get the best reviews of Australian and overseas SF books as well as great original Australian short stories, articles and artwork.  Why haven't you hit the link yet?