Delightfully, my story “It Will Only Hurt If I Want It To”, which was published in Midnight Echo last October, has been shortlisted as a finalist for the 2025 Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story.

BEST HORROR SHORT STORY
“Catch and Consume”, Ella T Holmes (Aurealis #185)
“The Bottom Feeders”, Fionn MacPherson (Lost Souls Issue 2)
“It Will Only Hurt If I Want It To”, Kirstyn McDermott (Midnight Echo #20, AHWA)
“The Shelter”, Carol Ryles (Midnight Echo #20, AHWA)
“Bitter Skin”, Kaaron Warren (Night and Day, Saga)

The Aurealis is Australia’s premier speculative fiction award and has always been very dear to my heart. It’s an honour to make the list of finalists, especially considering this year the awards received record numbers of entries in the Horror categories. It’s fabulous to see the genre growing so strong again.

I’m grateful to editor Marty Young for accepting this unpleasant little piece and thrilled to see that Midnight Echo itself is a finalist in the Best Anthology category. The ceremony will be at GenreCon in Brisbane later this month. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend but I will have all fingers crossed.

The full list of finalists across all categories can be found on the Aurealis Awards website.