Last night the glitterati of the Australian science fiction and fantasy scene gathered at the Independent Theatre in Sydney for the annual Aurealis Awards shindig.  Unfortunately many of us couldn’t be there, so informal gatherings happened around the country, frequently referring to Twitter for updates.

We had a small group of friends over for champagne and gossip while we watched and waited for “our” category (Best Anthology) to roll around. Last year was a great one here in Western Australia and Alisa (for her excellent Sprawl), Marianne and I (for Wings of Fire) , and just me solo (for Godlike Machines) were all up for Best Anthology.  which I think in itself was one of the best things about the awards.  As it turned out Marianne and I were delighted to hear that Wings of Fire had been given the award. We worked hard on the book, and it was especially pleasing to win an award with Marianne.

Other friends won during the evening – Tansy, Helen, Margo, and Kirstyn among many. Congratulations to them all! More than one person pointed out how similar the results were to the recent Ditmar Awards, and how good it was to see a convergence of popular and critical opinion looking back at last year’s Australian SF/F scene.

And, since I’ve not seen it online elswhere, the full list of winners:

Kris Hembury Encouragement Award: Jodie Cleghorn
Peter McNamara Convenors’ Award: Helen Merrick
Best Science Fiction Novel: Transformation Space, Marianne de Pierres
Best Science Fiction Short Story: The Heart of a Mouse, K.J. Bishop
Best Fantasy Novel: Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts
Best Fantasy Short Story: The February Dragon, LL Hannett & Angela Slatter (joint winners) Yowie, Thoraiya Dyer
Best Horror Novel: Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott
Best Horror Short Story: The Fear, Richard Harland
Best Anthology: Wings of Fire, Edited by Jonathan Strahan and Marianne S. Jablon
Best Collection: The Girl With No Hands, Angela Slatter
Best Illustrated Book / Graphic Novel: Changing Ways: Book 1, Justin Randall
Best Young Adult Novel: Guardian of the Dead, Karen Healey
Best Young Adult Short Story: A Thousand Flowers, Margo Lanagan
Best Children’s Fiction(told primarily through pictures): The Boy and the Toy, Sonya Hartnett (writer) & Lucia Masciullo (illustrator)
Best Children’s Fiction (told primarily through words): The Keepers, Lian Tanner

Early Saturday morning. I’m sitting here listening to a little Ron Sexsmith on the stereo while eldest daughter watches TV in the other room. If all goes to plan I should be recording a podcast this morning, and then it’s paperwork time. I’m so behind, and I need to get some time spent on it just to keep things moving.

The nice thing is that the weather in Perth is finally turning towards a convincing facsimile of autumn – cool mornings and cooler nights – which means I’m feeling more and more like reading. I’m beginning to get a little momentum on reading shorts and even reading a novel or two. While I’m making my way through the online stories at the moment, I’m also reading and enjoying James A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes. It’s very much old school space opera, but it hits the spot right now.

There are a lot of things sitting in the background – proposals to write, taxes to do, oceans of home maintenance, and travel to plan (!) – but for this thirty minutes a little blogging and some Locus work is enough.

My colleagues at Locus have announced the finalists for the 2011 Locus Awards, and I’m delighted to see that I’ve been short-listed for Best Editor, that the anthology I did with Lou Anders (Swords and Dark Magic) is up for Best Anthology, that three collections I edited made the Best Collection shortlist (congrats to Peter and Stan!), and that Al Reynolds’ wonderful novella “Troika” is up for Best Novella.  It’s a terrific shortlist, and it’s chock full of friends — to many to name individually without reprinting the whole thing — so I hope everyone will simply accept my sincere congratulations and that I hope you’ll all have a wonderful time at the Awards!