Awards and things!

July 16, 2023 ~ Tehani

So, I think I kind of got busy the past few months and completely forgot that the blog was a thing! News is regularly shared on Facebook and Twitter (RIP…) but I have definitely neglected this space.

What’s been happening? Well, first of all The Art of Being Human Kickstarter funded, reaching 275% of the initial target! Waaaay back in August 2022. Good grief, that’s nearly a YEAR ago! We very quickly progressed to fulfilment, with all ebook and physical rewards despatched by the end of October 2022.

We were stoked to see some love at Awards time, with Helen Viviene Fletcher’s story being shortlisted for New Zealand’s Sir Julius Vogel Awards, and we saw FIVE nominations for the Aurealis Awards – Best Anthology, Best Fantasy Novella and Best Horror Novella for “Among the Faded Woods” by Faith Mudge, Best Fantasy Novella for “The Ocean, the Lighthouse Keeper, and the Sunset” by Lee Cope, and with “The Icecutter’s Daughter” by Aiki Flinthart in Best Fantasy Short Story. It was a bittersweet pleasure when Aiki won the gong on the night, but we’re so proud to have been able to publish one of her last works.

That brings us up to the now, and the final round of Awards for the year are open with the Ditmars, to be presented at Conflux at the end of September, and which recognise excellence in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by Australians. These ones are peer-nominated and voted, so if you have read and loved THE ART OF BEING HUMAN and are an eligbile person who nominates (anyone “active in fandom” can nominate, though voting is restricted to members of the Natcon past and present), we would be delighted and grateful to see our contributors recognised.

Eligible works are:

BEST NOVELLA/NOVELETTE
“The ocean, the lighthouse keeper and the sunset” by Lee Cope
“Among the faded woods” by Faith Mudge

BEST SHORT STORY
“Seeding trouble” by Kirstyn McDermott
“Greatheart” by Juliet Marillier
“The icecutter’s daughter” by Aiki Flinthart
“All dressed up for the death trade” by Tansy Rayner Roberts
“Neuro” by Ephiny Gale
“She is not in heaven” by Rivqa Rafael
“Birdsong” by Joanne Anderton
“Exposure” by Jason Nahrung
“The poet’s tale” by Suzanne J Willis
“Everything so slow and quiet” by Kaaron Warren

BEST COLLECTED WORK
The Art of Being Human, edited by Tehani Croft & Stephanie Lai

BEST ARTWORK
Cover for The Art of Being Human – Amanda Rainey

Of course, TAOBH was just one of hundreds of amazing Aussie publications in 2022 and you should nominate anything you loved! If you have trouble remembering what came out last year, check out the entry list for the 2022 Aurealis Awards as a guide.

Nominations close on Tuesday, 14th of August, 2023 and can be made

online, via this form: https://ditmars.sf.org.au/nominations/nominations.html
via email to nominations@ditmars.sf.org.au

Finalists in the Aurealis Awards!

February 21, 2017 ~ Tehani ~ Leave a comment

Super excited to discover yesterday that we have FOUR shortlistings for In Your Face in the 2016 Aurealis Awards! Huge congratulations to Thoraiya Dyer, Claire McKenna and Shauna O’Meara on their short story shortlistings in the Fantasy, Science Fiction and Young Adult categories, respectively, and to ALL the contributors, as the book itself is also shortlisted for Best Anthology!

We are in excellent company on the shortlists – well done to all the creators recognised this year, it’s a wonderful list.

Congratulations to all the Awards winners!

March 28, 2016 ~ Tehani ~ Leave a comment

We were delighted to see that Cranky Ladies of History took home the Ditmar Award for Best Collected Work last night at Contact 2016, and that Kathleen Jennings also got the gong for her beautiful artwork for the book! There was strong competition in every category, so this is a real pleasure.

We didn’t have as much success in the Aurealis Awards on Friday night, but wanted to congratulate both the winners and all the finalists in every category – it was a fabulous event.

Huge congratulations to all the Aurealis and Ditmar Awards finalists!

February 19, 2016 ~ Tehani ~ Leave a comment

We’re ecstatic to see several FableCroft mentions on the 2015 Aurealis Awards and 2016 Ditmar Awards (covering the same year of work…) shortlists.

In the Aurealis Awards, special mention to Dirk Flinthart, finalist for Best Collection for Striking Fire AND for Best Horror Novella with “Night Shift” from the collection, Joanne Anderton, shortlisted for Best Science Fiction Short Story with “2B”, and DK Mok, shortlisted for Best Fantasy Short Story with “Almost Days” (both stories being from Insert Title Here). It’s also super exciting to see Focus 2014: highlights of Australian short fiction on the Best Anthology list.

The complete shortlists are available on the Aurealis Awards website, and showcase some of the absolute best of Australian writing produced in 2015 – such an honour to be part of it!

For the Ditmars, it’s fantastic to see Joanne Anderton double up with “2B” on the Best Short Story ballot, alongside Deborah Biancotti’s creepy Cranky Ladies of History story “Look How Cold My Hands Are”. The Cranky Ladies anthology also made the Best Collected Work ballot, and Kathleen Jennings’ gorgeous cover and internals for the book are shortlisted for Best Artwork. Editor Tehani Wessely is also on the ballot for the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review for both the team efforts of “Squeeing Over Supergirl” (with David McDonald) and “Reviewing New Who” (with David McDonald and Tansy Rayner Roberts). If you were a member of Swancon last year, or of Contact 2016 this year, you are eligible to vote, so please do (for ANY of the fabulous work shortlisted!).

Congratulations to everyone appearing on these shortlists – it really shows the strength of Australian speculative fiction.

Congratulations Australian Awards Winners!

April 12, 2015 ~ Tehani ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a really busy week in Australian speculative fiction, with THREE sets of Awards presented over the past week. We were delighted to be shortlisted for several of them, and even more delighted to take home gongs for some of them! Well done to all the finalists and congratulations to all the winners!

Tin Duck Awards (Western Australia)

Tehani and Katharine were part of a 15-strong interviewing team (including several West Aussies) for the 2014 Snapshot, which won the Tin Duck for Best Fan Written Work.

Ditmar Awards

We were up for quite a few and were stoked to see Kathleen Jennings win Best Artwork for her cover of Phantazein and Cat Sparks pick up Best Short Story for “The Seventh Relic” from the book as well!

Aurealis Awards

Phantazein was again represented among the finalists, with “The Ghost of Hephaestus” by Charlotte Nash shortlisted in Best Fantasy Short Story and the book shortlisted in Best Anthology. We didn’t succeed in taking home a pretty trophy this year, but we’re always chuffed to be on the Aurealis Awards list!

It’s always a pleasure to attend the Awards ceremonies and get to see the looks of pure disbelief on some recipients’ faces, and the excitement and palpable joy that fills the room as Awards are announced. Following along on social media is also lots of fun, but I’m really glad I got to be at both ceremonies this year, and enjoy the vibe in person. If you weren’t so lucky, here’s a Storify of the Tin Ducks/Ditmars, and another of the Aurealis Awards. On top of that, Cat Sparks has done an amazing job capturing the evenings here and here (the Swancon set).

If you are looking for a good place to start reading Australian writers, the shortlists are certainly an excellent place to begin (the full Aurealis Awards shortlist and winners is here). Again, congratulations to everyone – look forward to another great year of Australian speculative fiction!

Awards and Cranky Ladies excitement!

February 28, 2015 ~ Tehani ~ Leave a comment

The Aurealis Awards shortlists were announced overnight, and we’re so delighted to see Phantazein appearing in the Best Anthology category, along with “Ghost of Hephaestus” by Charlotte Nash (from Phantazein) getting a nod on the Best Fantasy Short Story ballot! Congratulations Charlotte, and to all the nominees! Don’t forget you can get a free Phantazein chapbook which contains Charlotte’s story, and a coupon for a half price discount on the ebook, right here, for a limited time.

I’m also completely over the moon that my launch order of Cranky Ladies of History arrived yesterday! So many beautiful books (I may have overused my apostrophes on social media yesterday, such was my excitement) 🙂 But they are so very pretty, and I cannot wait for people to start getting their hands on these gorgeous things. We have sent out all the Pozible hardcover rewards now, as well as contributor copies, and we’d love you to tweet us a picture of yours when it arrives – tag it #mycrankyladies !

The Cranky Ladies giveaway ends in about 10 hours (I’m also just a little bit ecstatic to see the number of entries – at least double of any Goodreads giveaway we’ve ever done before) – enter now!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Cranky Ladies of History

by Tehani Wessely

Giveaway ends February 28, 2015.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/widget/123918

Brief FableCroft update

April 11, 2014 ~ Tehani ~ 3 Comments

My apologies for the radio silence around these parts since the end of March. It’s been a crazy few weeks, and I haven’t even had a chance to properly celebrate the end of the Cranky Ladies of History campaign (which I will do soon!). A couple of very quick updates:

1. Insert Title Here slush reading is over halfway done, but we’ve had a few delays due to other things getting in the way. Hope to have first round reading finished in the next two weeks. I’m very sorry for those still waiting to hear back from us.

2. Cranky Ladies surveys and early rewards will go out very soon — just need a chance to sit down with the Pozible site and get it sorted! (And again, THANK YOU to our supporters and signal-boosters — I don’t think I can say that enough!).

3. Aurealis Awards! They happened last weekend, and we WON! One Small Step and The Bone Chime Song both received awards, alongside a bunch of other fantastic work. A proper update about that (with photos), also pending.

Thanks for your patience everyone — I’ve had a five day judging conference for the Children’s Book Council of Australia and end of term (day job) kicking my butt, alongside preparation for an interstate move, but hope to be back on the publishing train really soon!

Reviews and news roundup

February 24, 2014 ~ Tehani

A few bits and bobs for linking!

Cheryl Morgan congratulates FableCroft and Twelfth Planet Press on their Aurealis Awards shortlistings, and links to the books for sale in the Wizard’s Tower Books store.
Over at 13 O’Clock, Alan Baxter reviewed Path of Night, calling it, “excellently written and very well paced” – thanks Alan!
Speaking of reviews, Ink Black Magic by Tansy Rayner Roberts was reviewed in the February edition of Locus! Can’t link to it, unfortunately, but Carolyn Cushman said the book is, “a fun fantasy adventure with considerable satire…that brings to mind Terry Pratchett’s Discworld” – thanks Carolyn!
Tansy and other Aussies Alex Pierce and Gillian Polack, along with several other well know folks were mind-melded over at SF Signal, on the topic of “secondary characters who take center stage” – some interesting thoughts presented!
We’re looking forward to our big Book Party in Hobart on March 9 – who will be there to celebrate with us?
While we’re on the topic of parties, don’t forget that tickets to the Aurealis Awards ceremony (and the preceding Conflux Writers’ Day) are on sale! It’s going to be a blast!
And finally, submissions to Insert Title Here close on February 28 – have you got your story in?

Aurealis Awards shortlists!

February 16, 2014 ~ Tehani

We’re very excited to see the Aurealis Awards shortlists announced last night! It’s always lovely to see all the marvellous talent on the lists, but it’s particularly nice when some of our own work is there too!

Huge congratulations to Joanne Anderton, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Dirk Flinthart and DK Mok for their individual shortlistings, and to all the contributors to One Small Step and Focus 2012! None of our books are made in a vacuum, and all our writers, artists, designers and proofers play a huge role – thanks to you all!

Congratulations to all the finalists for the 2013 Awards. Look forward to seeing everyone at the ceremony in April!

More information about the shortlists and the Awards ceremony can be found at the website.

Congratulations Thoraiya!

May 13, 2012 ~ Tehani ~ 1 Comment

I was delighted last night to see Thoraiya Dyer be awarded the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story for her wonderful After the Rain contribution, “Fruit of the Pipal Tree”! Well deserved, and well done!