awards | Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

Posts Tagged ‘awards’

I guess I’m not giving up short story writing

Posted in A writer's life, authors, Beneath the Floating City, cover reveal, Digital Publishing, Geeking out, General excitment, Short listing, tagged Aurealis Awards, awards, Beneath the Floating City, book covers, Indie Publishing, SF, SF short stories, Short listing on February 15, 2018| 1 Comment »

On the bus this morning my Twitter and Facebook feed started going a bit wild. I was wondering why people were congratulating me. When I relaxed enough on the bus I started checking the phone. I had no book with me either.

OMG! I was short listed for an Aurealis Award from my short story collection, Beneath the Floating City.

So many friends are in the short lists. Some have been nominated many times and a number of those have won. Here I am little old me, getting a short listing for my self-published collection. The collection is mostly previously published works of science fiction, from early stories back in 2003, such as ‘Other’ to my later stories. I also published a new story in the collection called ‘Lake Absence’ that was inspired by Lake George when I was taking the bus to Sydney to head to the Denver Worldcon many years ago. I just couldn’t get that story published, though I came close with the Aurealis Magazine with one of the previous editors.

In previous years I would never have thought about publishing a collection of my own stories. Although it make sense to gather them up into one book because they are just there instead of scattered around. This was my first attempt and I gathered together SF stories. I have at least two others in mind. A magic realism collection called Through These Eyes and a fantasy collection, name not conceived yet. Since I’m also Indie publishing these days, the collection was something else I could publish.

I realise now that I just put this out there and I didn’t advertise it widely. I know this because the image for the cover was not in my WordPress archive.So I didn’t even blog about it. I think it was because it was just before I went to Europe.

So here it is. The wonderful cover was produced by Patty Jansen. I give this book away free to newsletter subscribers and it’s for sale in ebook everywhere for $2.99 USD. If you want a free copy, the link to sign up to my newsletter is here.

What does this mean for me?

Well heaps actually. To get this kind of acknowledgement is lovely. I had thought that my short story writing days were over. That there wasn’t any point because you know…well. Authors can sometimes have serious downward mind speak that squashes them down. I have mentioned this before but the whole “I’m not worthy thing” is difficult to control at times. That’s why it is so nice to get feedback, of the nice kind, and to be acknowledged with a short listing or an award or a review. It’s like being patted on the head and told keep going, you’ll get there.

I threw this in for the Aurealis Award without expectation. As someone who has researched Australian speculative fiction in the past I know how much the eligible works lists mean to the researcher, how useful. And I wanted to make sure that the work I put out was in the bigger lists. I wasn’t expecting a short listing.

Now I shall not give up writing short stories. I shall write those ideas that bash around inside my brain eventually.

Many thanks to the judges for their hard work. Congratulations to all the other nominees.

My name appears on a list with such amazing writers, I am over the moon, chuffed. Margo Lanagan, Kate Forsyth, Kim Wilkins, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Peter Ball. Here is the link.

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Deeply honoured to recieve the A. Bertram Chandler Award

Posted in A. Bertram Chandler Award, Australian Science Fiction Foundation, Ditmar Awards, sf conventions, tagged A Bertram Chandler Award, awards, Ditmars, fantasy fiction, Glenda Larke, Perth, SF convention, Swancon, Trudi Canavan on April 8, 2015| 2 Comments »

As per my previous post, I was in Perth to visit the awesome Glenda Larke and go to the 40th Swancon SF convention. Swancon was a national convention this year and thereby host to the Ditmar awards and a few other awards, including the A. Bertram Chandler Award.

Here is a little about the award from the Australian Science Fiction Foundation’s website:

The A. Bertram Chandler Award is given by the Australian Science Fiction Foundation.

It is Australia’s premier award for lifetime achievement in science fiction.

The first Chandler was presented in 1992 to Van Ikin at the National Science Fiction Convention, SynCon ‘92. Subsequent winners have been Mervyn Binns, George Turner, Wynne Whiteford, Grant Stone, Susan Batho (Smith-Clarke), Graham Stone, John Bangsund, John Foyster, Lucy Sussex, Lee Harding, Bruce Gillespie, Rosaleen Love, Damien Broderick, Paul Collins, Richard Harland, Russell B. Farr and Danny Danger Oz.

The 2015 Chandler Award was presented to Donna Maree Hanson at Swancon 40, the 54th Australian National Science Fiction Convention in Perth, Western Australia, on 5th April 2015.

I didn’t know anyone was watching me and noting what I was doing all these years. I was so surprised to be selected. I had fun doing all those things listed in my citation, except maybe the Conflux accounts last year. That was difficult. What a pleasure and an honour to receive the award. I have to thank the Australian Science Fiction Foundation again for the award. I’m flabbergasted and thoroughly pleased to receive it and can’t believe it’s happened.

When the citation was read out at the ceremony, I did sound like I had done an awful lot but that has been over the last 15 years.

Here is a few shots…also included are shots of Glenda Larke who tied with Trudi Canavan for best novel in the Ditmars. I gave Trudi’s acceptance speech as she is in Europe. It was an ideal outcome because both Trudi and Glenda are dear friends. John Scalzi presented the award and he was a little tricky and a bit of a tease. They way he announced it, it looked like Trudi had won by herself. When I sat down with the award, he said to the crowd, ‘Wait there’s more.’. I got so excited because I knew it was Glenda and that there had been a tie. Glenda didn’t suspect. She’d won her first award just before with the WA Tin Ducks. But it was exactly that. It was in good fun, but someone chided John Scalzi and I have a shot of him begging for forgiveness (not seriously but it was funny).