Awarded to: Rowena Cory Daniells, March 2016 at the Brisbane Natcon Contact

Judge Tehani Wessely would like to note that it has been her privilege to know Rowena for well over a decade, not just as a professional, but as one of the nicest and most hardworking people in the field. Rowena has been a mentor and friend to Tehani since she came on the scene in 2001/2002, and is a very welcoming figure in the community. Rowena continues to support writers throughout Australia with her generous advice and insights, as she has done for many years, through raising a large family and (more recently) despite personal tragedy. We are wiser for her presence, and happier for her company. She is a well-deserved recipient of this prestigious award.

Rowena Cory Daniells

Known variously as RC Daniells, Cory Daniels, Rowena Cory, Rowena Lindquist and Rowena Cory Daniells, Rowena is perhaps best know within the science fiction community as a writer. However, many don’t realise how much she has done to support not only other writers within the community, but organisations and events as well.

Rowena been involved in speculative fiction since 1976 when she and Paul Collins set up the small press publishing house Cory and Collins in Melbourne, and Rowena’s first publications included cover art for several Void publications titles.

Rowena’s speculative fiction stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies both in Australia and internationally since 1997. Her first novel, The Last T’En, was published in 1999. She has subsequently published further T’En books, and several books in the King Rolen’s Kin and Outcast Chronicles series, as well as the children’s novel The Evil Overlord, teen mystery Mystery at Devon House and the crime paranormal The Price of Fame.

She has supported the writing community by serving on the management committees of two national genre awards, as well as the Romance Writers of Australia, Queensland Writers Centre, the Brisbane Writers Festival and Fantastic Queensland. Rowena has worked in independent press, run a bookshop, served as a volunteer on state and national Arts Bodies, and organised national awards. She was instrumental in the establishment of the wRiters on the Rise (ROR) workshop group (with Marianne de Pierres), which has helped support the careers of authors such as Margo Lanagan Trent Jamieson, Richard Harland, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Maxine McArthur and Dirk Flinthart. Again with Marianne, Rowena was a founding member of the VISION writing group in 1996, the group that went on to form Fantastic Queensland, which subsequently ran Clarion South, and she served as a judge for the Aurealis Awards for five years, as well as judging short story competitions for different organisations. Rowena has set up national workshops and pitching opportunities and run workshops on writing at national SF conventions, schools and libraries and World Con 1999.

Rowena has consistently supported new writers and editors in the field, offering advice and stories without hesitation. Her professional writing work has been shortlisted for many awards over the years, such as the Norma K Hemming Award, the Romance Writers of Australia Book of the Year, and the Ned Kelly Awards, most recently including Aurealis Awards nominations for both her short story “The Giant’s Lady” and her Chronicles of King Rolen’s Kin series for the inaugural Sara Douglass Book Series Award.

 

Thank you, Rowena, for your (continuing) contribution to the field.