Ditmar Award Ballot Announced: Voting Now Open!

The ballot for the 2012 Ditmar Awards has just been announced and what an impressive list it is! I’m particularly excited because this year I’ve actually read/heard/seen more than half of the nominees across the ballot, so I feel particularly informed. Not that I believe in the whole, “You have to have read/heard/seen everything in order to vote responsibly” argument, but it’s really nice to be in a position where I’ll have several hard choices ahead of me when I sit down to fill out that ballot. Hmm, I wonder how many of those gaps I can fill before before the voting closes …

The Ditmar Awards will be announced at Continuum 8, which serves as the NatCon for 2012. Hearty congratulations to all the nominees:

Best Novel

• The Shattered City (Creature Court 2), Tansy Rayner Roberts (HarperCollins)
• Burn Bright, Marianne de Pierres (Random House Australia)
• Mistification, Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot Books)
• The Courier’s New Bicycle, Kim Westwood (HarperCollins)
• Debris (The Veiled Worlds 1), Jo Anderton (Angry Robot Books)

Best Novella or Novelette

• “The Sleeping and the Dead”, Cat Sparks, in Ishtar (Gilgamesh Press)
• “Above”, Stephanie Campisi, in Above/Below (Twelfth Planet Press)
• “The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt”, Paul Haines, in The Last Days of Kali Yuga (Brimstone Press)
• “And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living”, Deborah Biancotti, in Ishtar (Gilgamesh Press)
• “Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Bestiary”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Love and Romanpunk (Twelfth Planet Press)
• “Below”, Ben Peek, in Above/Below (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Short Story

• “Breaking the Ice”, Thoraiya Dyer, in Cosmos 37
• “Alchemy”, Lucy Sussex, in Thief of Lives (Twelfth Planet Press)
• “The Last Gig of Jimmy Rucker”, Martin Livings and Talie Helene, in More Scary Kisses (Ticonderoga Publications)
• “All You Can Do Is Breathe”, Kaaron Warren, in Blood and Other Cravings (Tor)
• “Bad Power”, Deborah Biancotti, in Bad Power (Twelfth Planet Press)
• “The Patrician”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Love and Romanpunk (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Collected Work

• The Last Days of Kali Yuga by Paul Haines, edited by Angela Challis (Brimstone Press)
• Nightsiders by Sue Isle, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
• Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
• Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
• Ishtar, edited by Amanda Pillar and K. V. Taylor (Gilgamesh Press)

Best Artwork

• “Finishing School”, Kathleen Jennings, in Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (Candlewick Press)
• Cover art, Kathleen Jennings, for The Freedom Maze (Small Beer Press)

Best Fan Writer

• Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work including reviews in Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus! and Not If You Were The Last Short Story On Earth
• Alexandra Pierce, for body of work including reviews in Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus!, Not If You Were The Last Short Story On Earth, and Randomly Yours, Alex
• Robin Pen, for “The Ballad of the Unrequited Ditmar”
• Sean Wright, for body of work including “Authors and Social Media” series in Adventures of a Bookonaut
• Bruce Gillespie, for body of work including “The Golden Age of Fanzines is Now”, and SF Commentary 81 & 82

Best Fan Artist

• Rebecca Ing, for work in Scape
• Lisa Rye, for “Steampunk Portal” series
• Dick Jenssen, for body of work including work in IRS, Steam Engine Time, SF Commentary and Scratchpad
• Kathleen Jennings, for work in Errantry (tanaudel.wordpress.com) including “The Dalek Game”
• Rhianna Williams, for work in Nullas Anxietas Convention Programme Book

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

• SF Commentary, edited by Bruce Gillespie
• The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond
• The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
• Galactic Chat, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Sean Wright
• Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce

Best New Talent

• Steve Cameron
• Alan Baxter
• Joanne Anderton

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review

• Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, for “2010: The Year in Review”, in The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2010 (Ticonderoga Publications)
• Damien Broderick and Van Ikin, for editing Warriors of the Tao: The Best of Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature (Borgo Press)
• David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely for “Reviewing New Who” series, in A Conversational Life
• Alexandra Pierce and Tehani Croft Wessely, for reviews of Vorkosigan Saga, in Randomly Yours, Alex
• Russell Blackford, for “Currently reading: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke”, in Metamagician and the Hellfire Club

You might have noticed that The Writer and the Critic, the podcast I do with my dear friend Ian Mond, has been nominated in the Best Fan Publication category. This is a great honour considering the high calibre of the field we’re up against — three other fantastic podcasts as well as the venerable Steam Engine Time which sees Bruce Gillespie holding the line for print publications — and I can say with all sincerity that I absolutely do not care who carries away this particular Ditmar. It’s going to be such a great night!

∞

The 2012 Australian SF (“Ditmar”) Awards recognise excellence in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by Australians in 2011. Voting for the Ditmar Awards is open to all members of Continuum 8 (including supporting members) and to members of Swancon 36 who were eligible to vote in the 2011 Awards. You can vote online here or else download a PDF of the ballot to mail in.

All votes must be received by 11.59pm on 27th May, 2012.

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