Ben, I completely agree with you about this issue. There is something very wrong with a system that allows the major short SF market in the world to have been overlooked. I'm up for one of those awards. If I win it, I will probably feel as if I shouldn't have, or wouldn't have, had all the stories been considered.

Cat Sparks

There were some foreign titles considered. I don't think Uglies or Pretties have been published here yet. Do we know that the scifi.com stories weren't considered? Maybe the judges didn't like them? (Which I find hard to believe cause Rjurik's scifi.com story is bloody amazing.)

The nominating system for the Aurealis Awards seems to be overly convuluted. Forms must be filled in and posted (right?). And I've heard rumours that the judges themselves can't nominate titles. Don't know if that's true, but if it is that's nuts. When I was a Tiptree judge the nominating system was dead simple (an online form where you could put title/author/publisher and then press the send button) and we judges actively kept an eye out for eligible material.

I can't imagine that the people administering the Aurealis want to overlook anything that's eligible, so I'm wondering why they don't have a simpler system.

You don't have to submit your own work, but *someone* has to submit it, and provide copies for all judges. For the Aus small presses and larger publisher, that's usually the publisher.

The stories you list weren't considered because nobody submitted them, with appropriate entry form, in other words.

I won't comment on the goodness/badness/whateverness of this, for obvious reasons, but that's why.

The whole point of having awards is to identify what is judged to be the best of something and give it a prize for being so. If the identification process manages to overlook the most prestigious market available then there is something wrong with it. Its not like Sci Fiction.com was some teeny little fanzine that no one has ever heard of.

I think the AAs are in danger of becoming a complete joke if this situation isn't rectified.

Cat

Or we could just look at it this way: the AAs are run in a way that the AA organisers want to run them. There are inherent flaws in the process, and the end result is that the winners will be those works judged by their respective panels to be the best works nominated. From previous experience with judging the AAs, the awards often recognise the middle ground: often the best stories manage a polar split of the panel and it's the compromise story that gets the award. Sometimes a judge's favourite stories of the year don't even make the shortlist due to underhanded machinations of other judges.

The AAs have been, for many years, a flawed award. It's just now that an extra mound of bureacracy has been introduced into the mix. The amount of work an indie publisher has to do in order to do the right thing by their writers has become an unpleasant task.

The AAs will never be a complete joke because there will always be some that take them seriously.

Ben, everything had to be submitted by *someone*. It could be the author, publisher, I think the judges themselves could nominate stories too.

The only thing is, anyone nominating a story had to be willing to pay to print up the story and mail it to the three judges, and complete the entry form.

I agree with you, it's ridiculous if they weren't considered... of course it's always possible that the judges for those categories *did* read the stories but didn't think they were good enough to go through the hoopla of officially entering them. Or maybe they didn't read them at all.

I think it's in the interests of the awards to be as inclusive as possible. While the burden shouldn't be *totally* on the judges (ie. they can't be expected to know every story that's been published in the US small presses etc) I do think it's in everyone's best interests if stuff isn't overlooked.

The entry forms in my opinion are unnecessary and simply complicate things.

As a judge I've frequently chased up stories/books.

Similarly I don't believe authors should be able to ask that their works not be considered...

I think you'll find that the 'entered works' list just doesn't include every work that was considered. Most judges will look outside the entered works if they can - but won't go to the trouble of trying to officially enter them unless they make the shortlist.

I know from the panel I was on this year that we considered several works that weren't officially entered - and in some cases chased up the publisher to send us copies.

Likewise, just because something's published overseas doesn't mean the judges don't go out of their way to read it.

I agree that the 'entry form' system is problematic, but the administration of something like the AA's strikes me as nightmarish from beginning to end, and I wouldn't dream of taking on a task like that myself. The previous system was flawed too - although to be honest, it hasn't changed for the judges.

Lucy Sussex here. I've been having this discussion with Cat Sparks & Richard Harland. Nobody told me you had to nominate your own work to get considered. Now I've had a good run with the Aurealis awards, I don't begrudge the nominees this year. But it seems to me an award is meant to be representative of its field, and that it should be inclusive.

For instance, with any fantasy category you are going to get interesting magical realist stuff (increasingly) from the mainstream. Well I remember the time the Yrs Best people (fantasy) contacted me about a story that had actually appeared in an oz lit mag. They wanted to contact the author for permission, and he actually turned out to be American. That they were prepared to range far and wide for their selection is meritorious.

Of the awards I've judged, some have been paid, some not. A meal with mucho red wine with the Davitts. Pay for another award, but it wasn't adequate recompense, not with 70-100 thick non-fictions to read. But in all cases the judges have been active in looking for stuff, spotting where books should have been submitted. Anything else is smacking of laziness.

No blame meant, but if I'd realized that I had to nominate the works by
Australians that I published for them to be considered, I would have done so.

As I just posted on Jonathan Strahan's blog, the very simple solution is for the administrators of the award to send out a release to Locus online/print and various online newsletters/news sites once a year (early) explaining the nomination process--ie. who can nominate and how.

I don't believe it has anything to do with individual rights. Unless there's a very good reason for it, (and occasionally there is a good reason) in fact, I think that declining a nomination is rude.

It's in fact my birthday. It's 5:59 pm here and after having a very relaxing massage this afternoon, I am now preparing to attend a birthday/New Year's eve dinner party at a friend's place. But it isn't till 8pm. So here I am.
Happy new year!!! to you all in oz.

I'm very choosy as to the parties I attend on New Year's Eve. If they aren't small ones, I don't feel as if they're for me and feel cheated. :-) I used to throw my own very small dinner parties, until the books on the kitchen table made that impossible. So now I go out. But no big parties for me! (at least not on Dec 31st).
So what did YOU do on the eve?

Thank you. Just got home from a nice, small celebration. Saw some very disappionting fireworks. The July 4th ones in NYC are much much better.

The difference may be that here it's COLD on New year's eve. I was not happy standing outside in below freezing weather waiting for fireworks that only last 10 minutes. In the summer I can see them from my window, which faces in the direction of the Hudson river and can watch imaginative ones for half an hour. I love seeing the new ones each year. Different colors, different patterns.

When I was at the Hague Worldcon there was an international fireworks exhibition that lots of us watched. It was glorious.

Well, yeah. That doesn't sound like much fun. Once I trudged over to the east side of the city for July 4th, with masses of people, including parents with baby carriages and one jerk smoking a cigar in the middle of several thousand cramped people. It was an experience I never wanted to go through again. The river walk was pretty empty tonight though because of the cold.

Ben, What temperature do you use in Australia? I need to convert it to Farenheit.

That's what I thought, but I couldn't believe the temperature could be that high! It wasn't that bad in Brisbane last year.

Gotta get offline. It's 2:13 am here and I'm wiped out. Nighty night.