I was remiss in mentioning this earlier, but I was stoked (pun intended) to have my debut collection Shards make it onto the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards. For the uninitiated, the Stokers are the world’s top honour for horror fiction and they are presented each year by the international Horror Writers Association.

Although I must stress that this is not a nomination, it does mean that Shards has already been whittled down to a pretty awesome top 10. It’s an honour to make it this far, and I can only hope enough HWA members read and enjoy Shards enough to vote it onto the final ballot.

Shards is an outside chance at best, but as preliminary voting has now commenced, if any HWA active members are interested in downloading a free PDF of the collection, just drop me an email (shane@jiraiya.com.au) and I’ll send a copy pronto.

With the Vic’s new Chronos Awards, there’s been some discussion about the role of the various Aussie SF awards. For anyone doubting the Australian Shadows Awards’ validity, please bear in mind that the Australian Horror Writers Association has more members on its books than the number of people who attend the SF Natcon each year. Add to this the Aussie horror writers not on the AHWA’s books (there are some) and the whole bunch of SF writers who dabble by publishing the occasional horror short story… well, you see where I’m going? It’s an award with a strong base, few categories, and with a view to the future.

Well, that last post gets a FAIL. It confirms my suspicion that so few people actually read small press short stories – at least amongst the people who stop by this blog. Most of the interest in small press stuff would appear to be my fellow writers wanting to get their own stuff published.

Anyway, onto something that’s been niggling me a bit (like that Year’s Best Honourable Mention thing a while back). With awards season now upon us, I’ve noticed there are a fair number of newer authors that claim to have ‘award nominations’ for work that was simply entered into an award. I’ve seen it happen with the Australian Shadows Award, the Aurealis Award, and the Bram Stoker Awards.

An ‘award nomination’ means that your work was shortlisted as a finalist. Having your work ‘entered’ into the award for consideration does not equal an award nomination.

I don’t blame the authors at all, though. How can they know any better when the terminology is so loose? We tightened up the language for the Australian Shadows last year for this reason.

All it requires is for awards administrators to change the wording on their entry forms to state works are ‘entered’ rather than ‘nominated’ for consideration and voila, problem solved.

On the subject of awards, the first of the Aussie SF public nomination awards – Western Australia’s Tin Duck Awards – are now open for people to recommend/nominate works.

Last year, I listed everything I thought eligible in the categories I know (the professional fiction ones). This year, I’m going to be more selfish and just post the stuff I read and enjoyed (which admittedly had a dark focus).

If you disagree with what I recommend, then go your own way. We’re in a democracy, after all, and I’m certainly not the fountain of all knowledge.

The best thing about this year’s awards is that they have a handy online entry form (similar to the Stoker Awards), which is convenient and cool. You’ll find it here.

So, I’d like to recommend the following works by West Aussies to any Swancon goers out there:

Best Professional Long Fiction
Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch by Simon Haynes (Fremantle Press)

Best Professional Short Fiction
“Teeth” by Stephen Dedman (Clarkesworld Magazine)
“Just Us” by Pete Kempshall (Voices, ed. Mark S. Deniz & Amanda Pillar)
“A Picture of Death” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (Voices, ed. Mark S. Deniz & Amanda Pillar)
“Bed Bugs” by Martin Livings (Voices, ed. Mark S. Deniz & Amanda Pillar)
“The Claws of Native Ghosts” by Lee Battersby (The Beast Within, ed. Matt Hults)

Best Professional Production
Black: Australian Dark Culture Magazine, edited by Angela Challis
Black Box, edited by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

Best Fan Production
HorrorScope (http://ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com/)
Eclectism, edited by Craig Bezant*
Studies in Australian Weird Fiction, edited by Benjamin Szumskyj*

Now, go forth and nominate!

* Not sure if these qualify in the Fan/Unpaid or Professional categories.

By now, word should be cropping up in all sorts of places around the internet, and perhaps even a few media outlets, that the finalists for this year’s Australian Shadows Award have been announced.

The AHWA website and HorrorScope have the shortlist of finalists. Congratulations, one and all!

This is the second and final year of my stint as an Australian Shadows judge and what a pleasure it has been. The Australian Horror Writers Association is one of the most professional – and certainly the most enthusiastic – peak bodies for writers in Australia. My fellow judges Chuck and Brett have ensured the selection process was quick and painless. Thanks guys. The choosing of the winner now lies with guest judge Sarah Endacott. The judges reports will appear when the winner is announced next month (Friday March 13).

Now that I’m the AHWA’s Vice President, one of the duties of the job will likely see me taking on the reins of the Australian Shadows Award Director role – a position deftly handled for the last couple of years by the indomitable Kirstyn McDermott. Should be a bundle of fun!

Tin Duck rules and nomination forms are now online. Further to my last post, here is a largish but probably not entirely complete list of short stories and written by West Aussies and published in 2007 (plus one or two other categories):

BEST WA PROFESSIONAL SHORT FICTION ELIGIBLES

• “Beached” by Lee Battersby (Daikaiju! 3)
• “Father Muerte and the Joy of Warfare” by Lee Battersby (Aurealis #37)
• “The Time Eater” by Lee Battersby (Doctor Who Short Trips: Destination Prague)
• “Born of Woman” by Lyn Battersby (Daikaiju! 2)
• “Angel to a Cowboy” by Laney Cairo (Cowboy Lover)
• “Tiger Tiger” by Laney Cairo (Torqued Tales)
• “Deathmask” by Neil Cladingboel (Antipodean SF #112)
• “Red” by Neil Cladingboel (FlashSpec Vol 2)
• “Shorthand” by Neil Cladingboel (FlashSpec Vol 2)
• “Beneath Southern Waves” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (Daikaiju! 2)
• “Itch” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (Horror Literature Quarterly #1)
• “Memoirs of a Teenage Antichrist” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (ASIM #31)
• “The Cutting Room” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (Gratia Placenti)
• “Yamabushi Kaidan and the Smoke Dragon” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings (Fantastic Wonder Stories)
• “Celestial” by Stephen Dedman (Cowboy Lover)
• “Centenary” by Stephen Dedman (Cosmos #14)
• “Nanomorphosis” by Stephen Dedman (Doctor Who Short Trips: Destination Prague)
• “Sufficiently Advanced” by Stephen Dedman (New Ceres #2)
• “Goon of the Month in Lagerland” by Nick Evans (Fantastic Wonder Stories)
• “The Sun People” by Sue Isle (Shiny #1)
• “Stranger and Sojourner” by Sue Isle (Orb #7)
• “Save the Dolphins” by Elaine Kemp (Zombie)
• “An Evil Twin” by Martin Livings (Antipodean SF #113)
• “There Was Darkness” by Martin Livings (Fantastic Wonder Stories)
• “Phantom Limbs” by Sonia Marcon (Fantastic Wonder Stories)
• “Calamansi Juice” by A M Muffaz (Bandersnatch)
• “Dead Lovers” by A M Muffaz (Reflections Edge)
• “Escaping Konakona” by Carol Ryles (Ticonderoga Online #11)

BEST WA PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTION ELIGIBLES

• Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #27 & #31, edited by Tehani Wessely (and ASIM co-op)
• Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 2007 edition, edited by Angela Challis (Brimstone Press)
• Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, Vol 1, edited by Jonathan Strahan (SFBC)
• Best Short Novels 2007, edited by Jonathan Strahan (SFBC)
• Borderlands #9, edited by Simon Oxwell et al
• Eclecticism, edited by Craig Bezant (http://www.eclecticzine.com/)
• Eclipise One, edited by Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade Books)
• Fantastic Wonder Stories, edited by Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
• FlashSpec Volume 2, edited by Neil Cladingboel (Equilibrium Books)
• New Ceres #2, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
• The New Space Opera, edited by Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan (HarperCollins)
• Shiny #1 & #2, edited by Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Ben Payne (Twelfth Planet Press)
• Ticonderoga Online #11 (http://www.ticonderogaonline.org/), edited by Russell B Farr & Liz Grzyb
• The Workers’ Paradise, edited by Russell B Farr & Nick Evans (T blah blah, P blah blah)

BEST WA FAN PRODUCTION

• Australian SpecFic in Focus, edited by Alisa Krasnostein
• HorrorScope, edited by Shane Jiraiya Cummings et al.

If you use quality as your guide there should be a Dedman (not sure which), a Battersby (“Father Muerte” is my pick), Livings’ “There Was Darkness”, perhaps one of mine, and an Isle (I’d choose “Stranger and Sojourner”) in the short story shortlist. One or both of the Ticonderoga anthologies, ADFH 2007, and perhaps ASIM, would be on the pro production list.

But pfft! When does quality count with popular voting awards, especially the ‘Ducks?

My inside tips (and I’m not necessarily inferring a lack of quality):
a) Anything with the word ‘Shiny’ attached to it (Sue Isle’s story to win, Borderlands vs Shiny in pro production);
b) ASif vs something from Grant Watson in the fan production category.

… and FFS, people, can we get an actual shortlist this year – meaning something with five or less nominated finalists? Enough of the “nominees” lists with twelve works in some categories!

[EDIT: I've added a few new entries to the Best Pro Production category - namely Craig Bezant's Eclecticism zine and Jonathan Strahan's anthologies. On quality, I'd say one or more of Strahan's anthos should be contenders (if not the winner), but I hold to my earlier comments]