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Aurealis Awards finalists and winners in each category are selected by our judges.
Five judges, including a designated convenor, is the ideal, but panel sizes may vary among categories – and from year to year – depending on the perceived workload required and the availability of judges for a particular category. However, each panel will consist of at least three judges.
Judges are volunteers and are drawn from the speculative fiction community; from diverse professions and backgrounds, and may include academics, booksellers, librarians, published authors, publishing industry professionals, reviewers and enthusiasts.
Being an Aurealis Awards judge involves reading entries in a single category, which may comprise several dozen novels and/or more than a hundred short stories in the process of evaluating the year’s entries. Judges may keep their reading copies of entries.
It is vital that judges be able to work as part of a team and meet stringent deadlines. Most of the judges’ discussions are conducted via an online forum or email.
All discussions are confidential between the judges in each panel and the awards coordinator and/or the Aurealis Awards management team, as required. The Aurealis Awards coordinator will have no input into these decisions unless a panel of judges is unable to reach a consensus.
Judges from previous Aurealis Awards processes are welcome – indeed encouraged – to re-apply. But, in the interests of transparency and impartiality, no one may judge the same category for more than two consecutive years, and a break of two consecutive years is required before a judge can reapply to be a judge in that particular category again.
Because fantasy and science fiction are the largest categories, they have been split into two separate judging panels, one for novels and one for short stories.
From 2009, the Aurealis Awards will be accepting some short fiction (up to ten thousand words) electronically. Judges of short fiction must be willing to accept and read some entries in this format.
The winner of the Peter McNamara Convenors' Award for Excellence will be reached by a consensus of the convenors of each of the judging panels. Each judge receives one complimentary ticket (non-transferrable) to the Aurealis Awards 2009 ceremony to be held on Saturday 23 January 2010 at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts in Brisbane.
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Bios
Science Fiction: Novel
convenor - Dr Helen Merrick
Helen Merrick is an academic who specialises in science fiction and fantasy. Apart from being a previous Aurealis Award judge, Helen has also been a judge for the respected James Tiptree Award in the US. She has contributed to the Cambridge Companion to SF and the Routledge Companion to SF; and has a book on feminist SF forthcoming from Aqueduct Press, The Secret Feminist Cabal.
Stephen Burgess
Steve Burgess has been reading science fiction and fantasy since he was a child (some good few years ago now) and still manages to get through a book a day on average when he gets the chance, despite running his own business. He has a particular interest in local authors and would love to see a greater emphasis on Australian writers in the industry. He enjoyed most of the process of being a judge of the Sci-Fi Novel category in 2007 (particularly the book reading part) and relishes the opportunity to dive back in and see what this year's offerings are like.
Justin Coughlan
Justin Coughlan is a Brisbane-based freelance editor/proofreader who got hooked on speculative fiction by reading Roald Dahl and Tolkien in primary school. Since then he has read as much fantasy, young adult and science fiction as he can get his hands on, and despairs that reading one book a week is never going to be enough.
Abigail Nathan
Abigail Nathan spent most of her childhood lost inside her own imagination and now spends most of her time mucking about inside other people's as an editor specialising in speculative fiction – www.bothersomewords.com . An avid reader and passionate fantasy and science fiction fan, she enjoys long walks along the beach, Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters and messing about in boats.
Ben Payne
Ben Payne is a reviewer at the Last Short Story website <lastshortstory.livejournal.com> among other places, and has been an active member of the local publishing community for the last ten years, both as a publisher, editor and reviewer. He has judged for the Aurealis Awards numerous times over the last decade, and is a dedicated supporter of Australian writing and criticism.
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Science Fiction: Short Story
convenor - Robert Hoge
Robert Hoge is a writer and communications specialist from Brisbane, Australia. He currently works as a government media adviser. Previously he worked as a journalist, as a speechwriter, a public relations officer and as a science writer for the CSIRO. Robert has helped publish and edit a number of publications including the anthology Glimpses, Aurealis Magazine and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. He is co-director of the Clarion South Writers’ Workshop and has previously been a judge for the World Fantasy Awards. Robert has had numerous short stories, articles, interviews and other works published in Australia and overseas.
Michelle Brown
Michelle Brown is a teacher in a Brisbane high school. She is currently wishing that she had her very own time machine with which time and her mistakes could be reconfigured to make the world a better place for her loved ones.
Glen Davies
When he was seven, Glenn made his own Time Machine from bits of string, pulleys and corrugated iron found around his house in country Queensland. It didn't work! When he was nine, he founded a UFO society in his neighbourhood, with badges, ranks and full-blown conspiracies. As a teenager, Glenn read every science fiction book in his school library. Now that he's all grown up, it constantly amazes him how many times he can refer to Star Wars and Stargate during his Ancient History classes. As an avid science fiction fan, Glenn has been referred to at times as 'somewhat odd', 'weird', and 'a bit freaky'. But what do they know, hey!
Sharon Dunne
Sharon Dunne is a professional writer and editor currently working in vocational education and training. She is a passionate reader of speculative fiction and an occasional dabbler in fiction and poetry writing. She knew her life would never be the same when at age nine she read Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, which started her on a journey to imagined realms that she hopes will never end. Her affairs with language and stories led her to working in a library, through a BA in literature, to book selling, to working at the Queensland Writers Centre, as a volunteer then eventually as editor of Writing Queensland, to freelancing and where she is now, writing training materials for the pool industry (which might not sound that stimulating, but she gets to use the tools she loves everyday, and reading SF is the perfect way to unwind from non-fiction writing).
Kira Sampson
Kira Sampson is an English and History teacher at a private girls' school. She is an avid reader across all genres but has a special love for fantasy and regularly seeks out Australian authors in particular.
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Fantasy: Novel
convenor - Alex Adsett
Alex Adsett is a consultant and manager with Alex Adsett Publishing Services, a company offering copyright and contract advice to Australian authors and independent publishers. She has more than ten years’ experience within the publishing and book trade, and has worked for bookstores such as Pulp Fiction Books in Brisbane and Murder One in London, and publishers Simon & Schuster (UK), Penguin Australia and John Wiley & Sons Australia.
Chris Anderson
Chris Anderson is currently completing Grade 9 (95% of the time in a library) in Brisbane. Chris has read anything he can get his hands on (including the majority of his father's Sci-Fi and Fantasy library at home) since he can remember. He is not an award-winning writer, not an award-winning magazine editor, nor an award-winning journalist, but he does love to read and one day the books that he reads may help to support a writer, an editor or a journalist to continue to do what they love. As a teenager, Chris looks to bring a different perspective to judging in this genre, representing advanced early readers and he looks forward to the experience of engaging with judges with such differing backgrounds.
Sarah Fairhall
Sarah Fairhall is currently undertaking the Penguin Internal Development Program, a role designed to develop skills in trade publishing through exposure to key areas of a publishing company over three years. She began working in the industry for book chain A&R in 1999 and since then has worked in a number of publishing roles at Penguin Group Australia. She is currently completing a Graduate Diploma of Editing and Publishing at RMIT.
Anita Gibson
Anita Gibson has been an avid reader of speculative fiction for over 20 years. She has a BSc and, having worked as a research scientist for many years, she is now following her dream to become a fiction editor. She is currently studying a Postgraduate Diploma of Writing, Editing and Publishing at UQ and a Diploma of Editing (Publishing) at Southbank Institute of Technology. She was a 2008 Aurealis Awards judge for the Anthology/Collections category and has worked as a volunteer editor for Pulp Fiction Press.
Cathie Tasker
Cathie Tasker has always been a devotee of SF&F. As a child she read Patricia Wrightson's Down to Earth which made a strong impression on her. Once a public librarian, and now a fiction editor, creative writing tutor and advisor and children's book publisher, she feels that she has found her calling as an editor: 'I'm the Spock, not the Kirk'. A prodigious reader across many genres, she always chooses fantasy first.
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Fantasy: Short Story
convenor - Helena Bond
Helena Bond is a Brisbane-based freelance book editor with over fifteen years' experience across a great range of publications. Her profession still leaves her time to read for joy, particularly fantasy, which she considers a fabulous way to explore life.
Dr Brad Jackel
I have a PhD in English Literature from Monash University, my thesis being on the way Conrad used imagery from Dante’s Inferno in his fiction, a subject which I have published a couple of articles on. I have published numerous poems in Quadrant; the one that was included in Best Australian Poems 2005 was noted as a ‘gem’ in the SMH review of that anthology. I am currently a research fellow with the Australian Council for Educational Research. I have enjoyed science fiction and fantasy for many years and am a member of the NOVA mob in Melbourne – am applying for this judging role because I thought it would be a nice way to give back to a form of fiction that has given me an enormous amount of joy through the years.
Zoë Velonis
Zoë Velonis wishes that being a librarian meant she had nothing else to do but read books all day, as some people seem to think. Still, finding out interesting and often obscure facts isn’t bad either, especially when they can be somehow worked into fiction. Though she has suffered her share of writer’s block, these days she spends more time reading than writing. She can’t remember when she first began reading speculative fiction, but grew up surrounded by everything from Joan Aiken to Roger Zelazny. She got bit by the comics bug when her brother gave her two issues of Sandman, and once got to tell Neil Gaiman that it was all his fault. Picking just one category as a top choice was one of the hardest things she’s had to do in a long time.
Zoe Walton
Zoe Walton is the Associate Publisher of books for children and teenagers at Random House Australia. She publishes books across the spectrum from illustrated books for younger readers to series and standalone fiction for teenagers and young adults. She has a particular passion for fantasy and speculative fiction, and is proud to publish authors including Michael Pryor, John Flanagan, Colin Thompson, Sophie Masson and Deborah Abela.
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Horror
convenor: Diane De Bellis
Dianne De Bellis has been Convener and Judge for the Aurealis Awards since 1997, judging in most categories. Having completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Professional and Creative Communication and winning the University Medal, Dianne is currently doing a PhD in narratives of war. Before becoming a lecturer and tutor in writing, semiotics and cultural studies, she was a technical writer for various government departments. She has been involved with SF&F conventions and fan activities since 1985 and is enthusiastically looking forward to the WorldCon in Melbourne in 2010. She has two children, eight nieces and nephews and two grand-children who continue to teach her about books and reading. She loves reading in all genres and has a fascination with pop culture. She enjoys movies and cannot resist TV series that have three or more seasons.
Kimberly Chandler
Kimberly Chandler has always been caught up in other worlds, whether they be inside her own head or created by other people. She is a bookworm, a freelance editor, a writer and a perpetual student. She lives in Brisbane but hopes this won't always be the case. Kimberly fell in love with fantasy through Terry Pratchett
Joe Marsden
Joe Marsden currently works in the Contracts and Licensing department of John Wiley & Sons Australia and has been reading avidly for more than 20 years. He has a BA in journalism and a BA (Hons) in history from the University of Queensland. He enjoys the irony of seeing people who snub fantasy as a literary genre gobbling up Lord of the Rings on DVD.
Jason Reed
Jason Reed is a bookseller at the independent bookstore Riverbend Books in Bulimba. He has loved speculative fiction ever since he found a tattered, second-hand Stephen King book in high school. He is currently completing a degree in literature and regularly reviews for M/C Reviews, a website dedicated to Media, Culture and everything in between. He co-runs a blog about writing, art, literature, music and film. In his spare time he runs a book club and once he really did run away and join the circus.
Rowena Specht-Whyte
Rowena Specht-Whyte has been devouring speculative fiction books from a very young age, to the despair of her grandmother who desperately hoped she’d learn a love of non-fiction. Interestingly, her grandmother was the first to open the door to spec fiction, reading all of the Narnia books on tape to Rowena beginning at the tender age of five. By profession, Rowena is a solicitor practising in commercial litigation and insolvency at Gadens Lawyers in Brisbane. She is also a semi-professional singer/songwriter in bands never and Opaque and an amateur writer, as well as keeping up her spec fic book addiction, reading across all genres, but predominantly dark fantasy and horror. Words and beautiful expression are her passion.
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Young Adult
convenor: Mim Crase
A Teacher Librarian of long experience in the Education Queensland scene, having taught in urban, rural and international schools. The joy of sharing great stories is the core of business for any librarian/teacher. Being a part of the Aurealis scene means being at the forefront of Australian children's literature and the view is fantastic.
Miffy Farquharson
Hi! My name is Miffy Farquharson. My real name is Myfanwy, but that's one heck of a mouthful. Currently, I am the Head of Library at Girton Grammar School, Bendigo, a P-12 independent day and boarding school with 999 students and I teach as the Junior School Teacher-Librarian. This is a job that I love! Who wouldn't want to spend their whole day surrounded by books, and by kids who love to read? I coordinate the Victorian Premier's Reading Challenge and manage the Junior School student data entry for the challenge. I am really grateful to have the opportunity to see how the Aurealis Awards work 'from the inside'. I know myself, as an adult or child, you sometime puzzle over the choices made by the judges. This is my opportunity to see what really happens. Cheers, Mif
Kathryn Linge
Kathryn Linge is a university academic and an avid reader. She has been reading Australian speculative fiction since 2005 and first experienced Aurealis Awards judging in 2008 as part of the SF novel panel. She has been a reviewer for the review website Australian Spec Fic in Focus (ASif!) since its inception and was nominated for the William Aethling Jr Award for Criticism or Review in 2007. In 2008, she was part of the team that won the Ditmar for Best Fan Production for the 2007 Snapshot, in which 83 people in the Australian speculative fiction scene were interviewed in a week.
Alex Mitchell
Alex Mitchell is currently studying Grade 11 English, at Newstead College in Launceston, Tasmania. Alex was a Young Adult judge in last year's Aurealis Awards. Alex has always enjoyed reading, and is often told by her mother to 'get her nose out of those books.'
Tehani Wessely
Tehani Wessely is co-editor and the shared world anthology New Ceres Nights and other projects for the indie publisher Twelfth Planet Press. In her 'real life' she is the teacher librarian and (and fiction purchaser) for a large secondary school south of Perth. She convened the Fantasy novel panel of the Aurealis Awards in 2007 and 2008, is a keen reviewer of local speculative fiction, and currently spends too much time working on an anthology of spec fic for children aged nine to thirteen.
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Children's
convenor: John Blahusiak
John Blahusiak is an occasional writer and inventor of stories and songs. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of WA, and works full-time in Governance Services, Edith Cowan University. John is currently on the Register of Peers for the WA Young People and the Arts Peer Assessment Panel, and is a past board member of the youth arts organisation Propelarts. A sometimes postgraduate student, John's interests currently include administrative law, Willie Nelson, Raffi and learning to handstand.
Lynne Green
Lynne Lumsden Green is currently studying Creative Writing at the University of the Sunshine Coast, with the aim of going on to do Honours next year. She assists in running Scriberspace, a website for writers. As Lynne Green, the Science Queen, she writes the monthly Science Page for Voyager Online, the HarperCollins website for Speculative Fiction.
Kerry Neary
Kerry Neary is a retired Teacher Librarian. He has been a judge for the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Awards in 1993-94, 1996 and 2005-06. He has been involved in manuscript evaluation and reviewed children's literature extensively. Currently he reviews books for beginner readers on 4MBS Classic FM radio in Brisbane. He appreciates all good writing and illustration and in his own reading tastes has an inclination towards adventure and speculation.
Katia Nizic
Katia Nizic is an avid reader of children's and young adult literature, especially in, but not limited to, the genres of fantasy and science fiction. Katia spent two years as a devoted bookshop employee at Dymocks Chermside while completing her Bachelor of Creative Writing at QUT and her Graduate Diploma in Writing, Editing and Publishing at UQ. She currently works in the Contracts and Licensing department of John Wiley & Sons Australia
Alix Rohner
Alix is a year 10 student who lives on the Sunshine Coast. She discovered the compulsion of reading at age eleven when she was given A Series of Unfortunate Events for Christmas. Her mother forced her to turn the light out at 1:22am on Boxing Day. She hasn’t stopped reading since.
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Illustrated book or graphic novel
convenor: Sharron Campbell
Sharron Campbell is a prodigious reader of speculative fiction and has worked for Pulp Fiction Books and Pages Booksellers. She has a keen interest in Australian speculative fiction, particularly in new mediums through which it can be expressed. A lawyer for the public service, she hopes her trade won’t be held against her – she was young and foolish when she went to law school and didn’t know any better. In her current position she reads plenty of fantasy which will not be nominated for an Aurealis Award – but some of which should be.
Katherine Phelps
Dr Katherine Phelps studied creative writing with Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Joanna Russ and American National Book Award winner Charles Johnson. Her doctorate is in digital storytelling with applications in computer gaming and hypernovels. Her website Glass Wings is Australia's oldest commercial literary digizine and has received over three million hits a month. She is the author of the non-fiction title Surf's Up: Internet Australian Style, which sold out in its first week, as well as several other books. Dr Phelps has been an editor for the literary magazines Bricolage and Seattle Review, and the editor-in-chief for Megazone Electronic Entertainment Magazine. She taught and was a postgraduate supervisor within the Professional writing and Editing Department at RMIT for seven years.
Alisa Krasnostein
Alisa Krasnostein is an editor and publisher for Twelfth Planet Press. As an avid reader of speculative fiction, she is an executive editor of the review website ASif! and a member of the Last Story on Earth project, which attempts to read all spec fic shorts published in the calendar year. In her role as editor and publisher, she has helped to produce five issues of Shiny, two issues of New Ceres, the anthologies 2012, New Ceres Nights and the forthcoming A Book of Endings. She is also the editor of Twelfth Planet Press's new novella series including Angel Rising, Horn and Robot War Espresso. She previously acted as judge and convenor for the Aurealis Awards in 2006 on the science fiction panel.
Peter Stoakes
Peter Stoakes was infected by graphic novels as a small child, and has spent the rest of his life trying to pass this on to anyone who stand still long enough. When not at work, he can be found sitting under a pile of must read comics.
Cynthia Tait
Cynthia has been involved in the Aurealis Awards since 2005. She is a keen reader of speculative fiction especially in children’s books and young adult fiction.
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Anthology and collection
convenor: Jervina Dorney
Jervina Dorney works as a software developer for a Brisbane-based technology company. She was hooked on fantasy and science fiction at a very young age and has not yet found the willpower to shake the habit. She reads far too much fiction in her spare time and sleeps far too little as a result.
Dr Toni Johnson-Woods
Toni Johnson-Woods teaches popular fiction and creative writing at the University of Queensland. She has published several books – her most recent Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives - is due for release in mid-2009.
Simon Petrie
By day, Simon Petrie is a mild-mannered research scientist at an Australian university. By night, he’s the same, but more dimly lit. He’s been reading full-blown SF since age twelve, when he got into trouble at school for reading Asimov’s Foundation series instead of his Latin textbook, and was rewarded last year with a coveted stint on the Aurealis Awards’ SF novel judging panel. Undeterred, he’s back this year. His other genre experience includes involvement in the Andromeda Spaceways publishing co-op, membership of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, book reviewing for Andromeda Spaceways, Australian Specfic in Focus, and Specusphere, an inability to say ‘no’ to the prospect of small-press proofreading, and responsibility for a lengthening list of SF short fiction sales to local and overseas spec-fic magazines. His aim now is to invent the time machine, translate the works of Iain M Banks into ancient Latin, and see what ensues.
Gail Pritchard
Gail Pritchard has some 25 years working in the community, education and disability fields. She has worked as an advocate and activist in the area of disability rights and represented community organisations and disadvantaged and marginalised persons with the government and non-government sectors. Working with groups around issues of social justice and all the complexities of 'inclusion' are high on her 'can do' list. She has managed a large community centre (with an annual visitation of 70,000 people), overseen programs in ESL, older persons' recreation, and outreach to young people with a particular focus on information resourcing to non-English speaking residents. Additionally, visual arts and theatre projects have had a significant place in her work history and Gail has managed community festivals, grasped the opportunity to curate exhibitions and promote the use of the arts for social and political expression. Gail's professional and personal interests encompass a passion for literary expression.
Cat Sparks
Cat Sparks managed Agog! Press from 2002 to 2008, an Australian independent press, that produced ten anthologies of new speculative fiction. She's known for her award-winning editing, writing, graphic design and photography. She was a graduate of the inaugural Clarion South Writers' Workshop and Writers of the Future prize winner in 2004. She has edited four anthologies of speculative fiction and forty-five+ of her stories have been published since the turn of the millennium. Cat has received nine Australian SF awards for writing, editing and art, including the Peter McNamara Convenors' Award for Excellence in 2004 for services to Australia's speculative fiction industry. She was the convenor of the Aurealis Awards Horror division in 2006. She is currently working on two novels, a novella and a handful of complicated short stories. TOP |
