What Can Happen in a Couple of Weeks.

While I've been away not having fun - don't ask - lots has been happening in the writing world.

My Clarion South mate, Jason Fischer, has a novella After the World: Gravesend out and available here. It will also be available from newsagents next week.

Russell B. Farr at Ticonderoga Publications has released the Table of Contents for his anthology Belong and I'm delighted to see my fellow Egoboo WA writer (and also a member of the KSP Speculative Fiction Group), Carol Ryles, on the list with her story Deeper Than Flesh and Closer. You can read Carol's latest Egoboo WA post on how she approaches a second draft here.

Also on the Belong Table of Contents is fellow KSP Speculative Fiction Group member (and a finalist in Writers of the Future in 2008), Sonia Helbig with her story Initiation. The complete Table of Contents is here.

A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti, edited by Alisa Krasnostein, and published by local Western Australian publisher, Twelfth Planet Press, was shortlisted for the Crawford Award.

The reports from the Judging Panels for the Aurealis Awards are now available here. Scroll down to the end of the page.

Finally, the ballot for the 40th Annual Locus Awards is here. Here's an opportunity to vote for what you consider the best work in 2009 and to nominate others which haven't been listed to date.

Aurealis Awards

Well deserved congratulations to all the winners, especially Western Australians, K. A. Bedford, Best Science Fiction novel for Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait, Jonathan Strahan, editor Best Anthology for The Starry Rift and Shaun Tan, Best Illustrated Book for Tales From Outer Suburbia (even if he has abandoned us for brighter lights). Best collection winner, Magic Dirt by Sean Williams was published locally by Ticonderoga Publishing run by Russell B. Farr and also deserves a mention in the West Aussie list of achievers.

Edit: In West Aussie successes I omitted to mention Trent Jamieson who is not a West Australian but took out Best Young Adult Short Story for Cracks in Shiny Issue 2 put out by Twelfth Planet Press which is Western Australian.

It was good to see Simon Brown, one of the Clarion South 2007 tutors, win Best Science Fiction Short Story for The Empire in Dreaming Again. Coincidentally I had just finished reading this without realising it was a finalist and enjoyed it thoroughly.

The complete list of winners is here but after looking at that you could go here and make the list of finalists a reading checklist. This was a extremely strong field and the judges must have had a very difficult time separating out the winners from such quality. I've read enough of the finalists to want to read the rest. I think you'd enjoy them too.