Hugo Winners

The Hugo Awards is out. Congratulations to all the winners especially to Tansy Rayner Roberts who was awarded Best Fan Writer. As the first Australian woman to win a Hugo this is something special. The complete list is here.

  Australia's own 

Sexism and History

Tansy Rayner Roberts has a thoughtful post on how women have mostly been rendered invisible in history (because history is usually written by men) and how this has impacted on fantasy writing. This is fascinating stuff and anyone who looks at history sensibly must notice the gaps. For instance who was running the estates while the Crusading knights were wreaking havoc in the Holy Land? Did everything just stop while they were away for years or did the wives and mothers left behind run the family business - the one that funded those warriors? While you're there you might like to have a look at this post as well.

Congratulations!

It's always good to see Australian authors doing well outside the small pond of their own country and there are several who have received recognition overseas recently and well deserved it is too.

On September 30, Brisbane writer, Angela Slatter, became the first Australian to win a British Fantasy Award for her short story The Coffin-maker's Daughter which first appeared in A Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones and published by Jo Fletcher Books. It has now been reprinted in The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011 edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene and published by Ticonderoga Publications.

Then on October 14 it was announced that Tansy Rayner Roberts had won the 2012 Washington SF Association Small Press Award for her story The Patrician in Love and Romanpunk edited by Alisa Krasnostein, published by Twelfth Planet Press, and also reprinted in The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011.

Also on the shortlist for the Washington SF Association award was Joanne Anderton for her story Flowers in the Shadow of the Garden in the anthology Hope edited by Sasha Beattie published by Kayelle Press.

Congratulations to all.

On Getting Published

There's an awful lot about it on the internet and the one consistent thing about it is that none seems to agree with any other so I was pleased to find this on Tansy Rayner Roberts blog where she links to Justine Larbelestier and Diana Peterfreund's blogs where they make it clear that everyone is different whether they be author, publisher or agent and so every experience of the process is different. Given I know writers who have obtained an agent by casually chatting to someone at a book stall at a convention, been published because they went to dinner with a group they had just met (also at a convention as it happens), by relentless querying of publishers or agents or by subbing once, it's clear that getting that first contact comes in many different ways. Some people work their way up by short story publications, some by competitions and others by writing a book that touches a particular editor or agent. They are all different. Why then would you assume that the actual publishing process of companies with different business models and different staff would be identical? But apparently people do. These links are very informative if only to shake those preconceptions.

Ethics and Review Copies of Books

Via Tansy Rayner Roberts blog comes this link to Stacked on ARCs, Ethics & Speaking Up - about review copies sent out to reviewers prior to the release of a book. These are usually clearly marked as review copies that are not to be sold. For non-reviewers, reviewers receive no payment from the publisher or author and the books they receive may be put together in a less finished state than that which goes on sale to the general public. As an occasional reviewer I receive books to review but never sell them. I just wouldn't because that costs the author and the publisher money and, in my opinion, that is unethical. The blogger at Stacked Books goes into the details of why.

Award Winning Australian Women Writers

As part of the Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge, the industrious Tansy Rayner Roberts has compiled a list of Australian women who have won awards in science fiction, fantasy and horror. You can find it here. So far the list consists of novels - adult, YA and children, collections, anthologies and non-fiction but she intends to expand it to include short stories later.

I had not heard about the challenge before I came across this post but it seems an interesting concept. The aim is to read and, if so inclined, to review books written by Australian women. There are a number of options open to participants ranging from simply reading to taking on set challenges. It can be genre related or not as you choose. Sounds like a good way to widen the scope of your reading.

WSFA Small Press Awards Finalists

The short list for the WSFA Small Press Awards 2011 is up on the WSFA website. These awards are for short fiction published by small presses. Among the finalists this year is Enid and the Prince by R J Astruc, published in Worlds Next Door edited by Tehani Wessely, Fablecroft Publishing (June 2010). The winner will be announced at Capclave in October.

Last year's winner was Siren Best by Tansy Rayner Roberts, editor Alisa Krasnostein, Twelfth Planet Press (October 2009).

It's good to see Western Australian small presses is getting some recognition internationally.

Congratulations

Tasmanian writer Tansy Rayner Roberts has won the 2010 Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award for Siren Beat, a novella published by Western Australian small press Twelfth Planet Press and edited by Alisa Krasnostein.

I really enjoyed this novella (part of the Doubles series where it was partnered by Roadkill by Robert Shearman) when I read it last year. The books from this press get better and better, I think. The cover art is always intriguing and I love the variety in the books they put out. Small press has a valuable part to play, particularly in genre fiction, as a place where shorter fiction can be published apart from magazines. Collections, anthologies and novellas are unlikely to be published by mainstream publishers who are forced by commercial constraints to focus on uncontroversial novel length fiction but they definitely are worth the read.