News: Australian Shadows Award expands!

Australia's top honour for horror fiction, the Australian Horror Writers Association's Australian Shadows Award, is now open for 2009 but with a major difference — this year, the Award has expanded from one to three categories.

In previous years, short stories competed with novels and anthologies, but from 2009 onwards, awards will be issued for the best works in Short Fiction (short stories), Long Fiction (novellas, novels, and single-author collections), and Edited Publication (for editors of anthologies and horror fiction magazines).

The Australian Shadows Award reading period is open from now until December 31. Works of horror and dark fantasy written or edited by Australians (or New Zealanders) and first published in the 2009 calendar year are eligible.

Authors, editors, or publishers seeking to enter eligible work must contact Award Director Shane Jiraiya Cummings to arrange for the material to be submitted to the judges (no entry fee required).

The 2009 primary judging panel consists of:

Craig Bezant has several short stories published in Australian and online zines but has centred his focus on writing novels, one of which recently went through the AHWA mentorship program. Craig is the creator and editor of the Eclecticism E-zine, archived on the National Library of Australia's Pandora Archive and nominated for 2008 and 2009 Tin Duck Awards. He is also an Associate Editor for the award-winning HorrorScope news and review zine and Reviewer for Black: Australian Dark Culture magazine, for which he was nominated for a 2009 Ditmar Award (Best Fan Writer).

Stephanie Gunn is a writer of dark fantasy, reviewer for HorrorScope, and sometime scientist. She has published several works of short fiction and is currently at work on a novel. Stephanie has been nominated for two Ditmar Awards (Best Fan Writer).

Chuck McKenzie was born in 1970 and still spends most of his time there. A multiple Ditmar and Aurealis Award nominee for his work as an author and editor, Chuck has also sat on judging panels for both the Aurealis and Australian Shadows Awards. He now champions speculative fiction in his role as a Melbourne bookshop manager.

The 2009 Guest Judges are:

Bill Congreve (Short Fiction Guest Judge) is an award-winning writer, editor, book reviewer, and independent publisher (MirrorDanse Books). His collection of vampire stories Epiphanies of Blood was published in 1998, and he is the publisher and co-editor of The Year’s Best Australian SF & Fantasy anthology series (with Michelle Marquardt). Bill has been a judge for the Aurealis Awards seven times and did a fifteen-year stint as book reviewer for Aurealis.

James Doig (Edited Publication Guest Judge) has edited two anthologies collecting rare colonial Australian horror stories, and has edited and introduced several single author collections and novels by forgotten authors. He has published research articles on obscure writers such as R.R. Ryan, Keith Fleming, and R. Murray Gilchrist. He is currently working on a book-length survey of Australian horror fiction. James works for the National Archives of Australia in Canberra.

Martin Livings (Long Fiction Guest Judge) is a Perth-based writer who has had over fifty short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His short works have appeared in The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy Volume Two and Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror Volume One and Volume Three. His first novel, Carnies (Hachette Livre), was nominated for both the Aurealis and Ditmar awards.



Source: AHWA