The 2005 Australian National Science Fiction Achievement ‘Ditmar’ Awards were presented at Thylacon, the 44th Australian National Science Fiction Convention, on Saturday 11 June 2005, in a ceremony at the Wrest Point Hotel, Hobart, Tasmania. Tbe winners were:

Best Novel

The Crooked Letter, Sean Williams (HarperCollins Australia)

Best Collected Work

Black Juice, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin Australia)

Best Novella/Novelette

“The Last Days of Kali Yuga”, Paul Haines (NFG Magazine, August 2004)

Best Short Story

“Singing My Sister Down”, Margo Lanagan (Black Juice)

Best Professional Artwork

Kerri Valkova for the cover to The Black Crusade (Chimaera Publications)

Best Professional Achievement

Clarion South committee

Fan Achievement

Conflux convention committee

Fan Artist

Sarah Xu

Fanzine

The Bullsheet, ed Edwina Harvey & Ted Scribner

Fan Writer

Bruce Gillespie

Best New Talent

Paul Haines

The organisers also presented two further awards, not Ditmars, at the ceremony.

William Atheling Jnr Award for Criticism or Review (tie)

Robert Hood, for his review of Weight of Water at HoodReviews; and

Jason Nahrung for “Why are publishers afraid of horror” (BAM, Courier Mail, 20 March 2004)

The Peter McNamara Achievement Award

Jonathan Strahan

The very, very nice folks at Fantastic Queensland who are running next year’s Natcon, Conjure, have decided to take a probably uninsurable risk with membership sales by inviting me to be their editor guest of honor. I am, of course thrilled and delighted with this, but can’t help but hope that you all won’t hold it against them, and will still buy memberships for yourselves, your friends, your family, and in fact anyone you know who might be in Brisbane at the time, or be willing to go to Brisbane just to pitch in and help. I promise to stay out of the way as much as possible, and am confident that Cory, Sean and Kim should make the trip worthwhile. See you there!

I am enormously pleased and more than a little humbled to announce that I have been awarded the Peter McNamara Award. I say awarded, because this doesn’t feel like the kind of thing you win, which tends to sound very competitive. Rather, some fine people like Van Ikin and the folks who run the award decide you are somehow worthy. I am happily mystified as to why, but would like to thank them, and Mac’s family. It’s really rather lovely.

Well, copies of Best Short Novels: 2005 were delivered today. They look cool. Nice to get to the end of a project. sigh. Well, that was the moment of satisfaction. Onward.

June 2005

I co-edit the SCIENCE FICTION: BEST OF and FANTASY: BEST OF anthology series with Karen Haber for Simon & Schuster/ibooks. The latest volumes were published in January 2005, and we are currently reading for the 2006 volumes, which will include all material published in the year 2005.

We are looking for stories from all branches of science fiction and fantasy: from space opera to the slipstream, fairy tales to infernokrusher, or anything else that might qualify. If in doubt, send it. This is a reprint anthology so we are only reading material published in or about to be published during the year 2005.

We work on a very tight deadline, and need to see work as early as possible. With that in mind, the submission deadline is 15 October 2005. Anything sent after this deadline will reach us too late. If a magazine, anthology, or collection you’re in or you edit is coming out by December 31st 2005 you can send galleys or manuscripts so that we can judge the stories in time. No email submissions. I strongly suggest that authors check with their publishers that they are sending review copies out to me, as we don’t have the resources to follow-up publishers to get material.

When sending material please put YEAR’S BEST on the envelope.

Jonathan Strahan
9 Merton Way
Morley WA 6062
Australia

While we do not accept email submissions, we are happy to receive recommendations or information on publications via email. The contact address is jstrahan (at) iinet (dot) net (dot) au.

** All correspondence should be direct to Jonathan Strahan.

*** We do not want to receive manuscripts from authors of stories from venues that it’s likely we already receive regularly (like Interzone, The Third Alternative, Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, etc). And please do not send a SASE.