Not so much breaking news . . .

. . . as a handful of notable events that have happened over the past month. Old news, most likely, but I still like to keep a record of such things here if only for my own edification.

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The 2010 Ditmar Awards for Australian SF were announced at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention, NatCon-Dudcon III, on 3rd September (the Friday night of WorldCon). It was a pleasure to see a whole bunch of very deserving people take home a shiny trophy. The full list of winners and nominees are on the Locus Website. It makes for a very fine reading/viewing list indeed!

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The 2010 Hugo Awards were also announced at WorldCon, with the ceremony taking place on Sunday, 5th September.  Australian author and gentleman Garth Nix did a superb job as Master of Ceremonies, and the entire event was streamed live and now can be viewed online. The full list of winners and nominees are on the AussieCon4 website — congratulations to everyone!

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Ticonderoga Publications have announced the first in an ongoing annual series of Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror, to be edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene. Hopefully, this series will fill a void left by the untimely end of the Brimstone Press “best of” collection, Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror, while expanding the boundaries into other areas of the fantasy genre. The first volume will cover stories published in 2010, and will be published in June 2011. Full submission guidelines can be found here.

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Finally, I’m extremely excited to learn that Ticonderoga will also be publishing Adelaide author Lisa Hannett’s debut short story collection in July 2011. Bluegrass Symphony promises us cowboys and fallow fields, shapeshifters and rednecks, superstitions and realities in harsh prairie country — and a whole bunch of other things thrown in the mix. Lisa is a brilliant writer and I can’t wait to get my hands on this book!

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