Category Archives: News

2013 Ditmar Award winners announced

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The winners of the 2013 Ditmar Awards, for Australian SF, have been announced at Conflux 9, the 52nd Australian NatCon. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. All the nominees are listed below, with the winner in each category separated as the first item on the list. Great to see Aussie horror taking the wins in open genre categories!

Best Novel

  • Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)
  • Suited, Jo Anderton (Angry Robot)
  • The Corpse-Rat King, Lee Battersby (Angry Robot)
  • Bitter Greens, Kate Forsyth (Random House Australia)
  • Perfections, Kirstyn McDermott (Xoum)
  • Salvage, Jason Nahrung (Twelfth Planet)

Best Novella or Novelette

  • “Sky”, Kaaron Warren (Through Splintered Walls)
  • “Significant Dust”, Margo Lanagan (Cracklescape)
  • “Flight 404”, Simon Petrie (Flight 404/The Hunt for Red Leicester)

Best Short Story

  • “The Wisdom of Ants”, Thoraiya Dyer (Clarkesworld 12/12)
  • “The Bone Chime Song”, Joanne Anderton (Light Touch Paper Stand Clear)
  • “Sanaa’s Army”, Joanne Anderton (Bloodstones)
  • “Oracle’s Tower”, Faith Mudge (To Spin a Darker Stair)

Best Collected Work

  • Through Splintered Walls, Kaaron Warren (Twelfth Planet)
  • The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011, Liz Grzyb & Talie Helene, eds. (Ticonderoga)
  • Midnight and Moonshine, Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter (Ticonderoga)
  • Light Touch Paper Stand Clear, Edwina Harvey & Simon Petrie, eds. (Peggy Bright Books)
  • Cracklescape, Margo Lanagan (Twelfth Planet)
  • Epilogue, Tehani Wessely, ed. (FableCroft)

Best Artwork

  • Cover art, Kathleen Jennings, for Midnight and Moonshine (Ticonderoga)
  • Illustrations, Adam Browne, for Pyrotechnicon (Coeur de Lion)
  • Cover art and illustrations, Kathleen Jennings, for To Spin a Darker Stair (FableCroft)
  • Cover art, Les Petersen, for Light Touch Paper Stand Clear (Peggy Bright Books)
  • Cover art, Nick Stathopoulos, for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 56 (ASIM Collective)

Best Fan Writer

  • Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work including reviews in Not If You Were The Last Short Story On Earth
  • Alex Pierce, for body of work including reviews in Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus
  • Grant Watson, for body of work including the “Who50” series in The Angriest
  • Sean Wright, for body of work including reviews in Adventures of a Bookonaut

Best Fan Artist

  • Kathleen Jennings, for body of work including “The Dalek Game” and “The Tamsyn Webb Sketchbook”

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

  • The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond
  • Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, Alisa Krasnostein, Tehani Wessely, et. al.
  • Galactic Chat, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Sean Wright
  • Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce
  • Snapshot 2012, Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, Helen Merrick, Ian Mond, Jason Nahrung et. al.
  • Antipodean SF, Ion Newcombe
  • The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe

Best New Talent

  • David McDonald
  • Steve Cameron
  • Stacey Larner
  • Faith Mudge

William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism or Review

  • Tansy Rayner Roberts, for “Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. Let’s Unpack That.” (Tor.com)
  • Rjurik Davidson, for “An Illusion in the Game for Survival”, a review of Reamde by Neal Stephenson (The Age)
  • Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, for “The Year in Review” (The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011)
  • Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, and Tehani Wessely, for review of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh (Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus)
  • David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wessely, for the “New Who in Conversation” series

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Australian Shadows Awards Winners 2012

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The Australian Horror Writers Association is pleased to announce the Winners of the 2012 Australian Shadows Awards. The Shadows are awarded to the stories and collections that best typify the horror genre, delivering a sense of ‘creeping dread’, leaving the reader with chills and a reluctance to turn out the light.

Congratulations to the Winners, selected by a panel of judges, each an authority on the horror genre.

NOVEL

Perfections – Kirstyn McDermott

LONG FICTION

Sky – Kaaron Warren

SHORT FICTION

Birthday Suit – Martin Livings

EDITED PUBLICATION

Surviving the End – Craig Bezant

COLLECTION

Through Splintered Walls – Kaaron Warren

Congratulations to all the winners and the other very worthy finalists. Horror writing in Australia remains a force to be reckoned with.

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Midnight Echo to distribute Cemetery Dance Publications

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Midnight Echo magazine is now the official Australian distributor of Cemetery Dance Publications, the world’s leading specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense.

“Cemetery Dance Publications is thrilled to be working with our friends at Midnight Echo to make it easier and more affordable for collectors and readers in Australia to order our books.” Brian Freeman, Managing Editor, Cemetery Dance Publications

Readers can visit the Midnight Shop page on the ME website to see all the titles now available, or to place a pre-order for upcoming books: http://midnightechomagazine.com/the-new-midnight-shop/.

“For those living in Australia, this deal means you no longer have to pay the expensive international shipping costs when you order CD books. And don’t forget that you can also order the latest copy of Dark Discoveries magazine from us, too,” ME Executive Editor Marty Young said.

Midnight Echo has also released details and the Table of Contents for its next issue, #9.

Cover art by Mel Gannon
Interior art by Greg Chapman

The Table of Contents:

Literature

Changeling by Jonathan Maberry

Black Train Blues by James A Moore

Black Peter by Martin Livings

The Road by Amanda J Spedding

Coffee Rings by Kristin Dearborn

The Wee Folk by JG Faherty

From the Forebears by Steven Gepp

Little Boy, Little Girl, Lost in the Woods by Mark Patrick Lynch

The Fathomed Wreck to See by Alan Baxter

Poetry

ganesh by Talie Helene

Comic

Allure of the Ancients: The Key to His Kingdom - story by Mark Farrugia, illustrations by Greg Chapman

Special Features

The Mythology of Mid-World by Robin Furth (non-fiction)
Russian Field of Mysteries by Tony Vilgotsky (non-fiction)
An Interview with Jonathan Maberry
An Interview with Mel Gannon

Regular Features

A Word from the AHWA President - Geoff Brown
Tartarus - Danny Lovecraft (poetry column)
Pix and Panels – Mark Farrugia (comic column)
Black Roads, Dark Highways #4 – Andrew McKiernan (column)
Sinister Reads (all the latest releases from AHWA members)

Pre-orders for the limited print edition are now being taken. Please visit www.midnightechomagazine.com for full details.

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2012 Stoker Awards Final Ballot

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From Locus Magazine – The 2012 Stoker Final Ballot has been released by the Horror Writers Association:

Superior Achievement in a Novel

  • Bottled Abyss, Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Redrum Horror)
  • NightWhere, John Everson (Samhain)
  • The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
  • The Haunted, Bentley Little (Signet)
  • Inheritance, Joe McKinney (Evil Jester)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

  • Charlotte Markham and the House of Darklings, Michael Boccacino (William Morrow)
  • Wide Open, Deborah Coates (Tor)
  • The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief, Charles Day (Noble YA)
  • A Requiem for Dead Flies, Peter Dudar (Nightscape)
  • Bad Glass, Richard Gropp (Del Rey)
  • Life Rage, L.L. Soares (Nightscape)

Superior Achievement in a YA Novel

  • The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little Brown)
  • I Hunt Killers, Barry Lyga (Little Brown)
  • Flesh & Bone, Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster)
  • I Kissed A Ghoul, Michael McCarty (Noble Romance)
  • The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
  • A Bad Day for Voodoo, Jeff Strand (Sourcebooks)

Superior Achievement Long Fiction

  • Thirty Miles South of Dry County, Kealan Patrick Burke (Delirium)
  • I’m Not Sam, Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKee (Sinister Grin)
  • Lost Girl of the Lake, Joe McKinney & Michael McCarty (Bad Moon)
  • The Blue Heron, Gene O’Neill (Dark Regions)
  • The Fleshless Man, Norman Prentiss (Delirium)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

  • “Surrounded by the Mutant Rain Forest”, Bruce Boston (Daily Science Fiction)
  • “Bury My Heart at Marvin Gardens”, Joe McKinney (Best of Dark Moon Digest)
  • “Righteous”, Weston Ochse (Psychos)
  • “Available Light”, John Palisano (Lovecraft eZine, March 2012)
  • “Magdala Amygdala”, Lucy Snyder (Dark Faith: Invocations)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

  • Shadow Show, Mort Castle & Sam Weller (HarperCollins)
  • Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations, Eric J. Guignard (Dark Moon)
  • Hell Comes to Hollywood, Eric Miller (Big Time)
  • Horror for Good: A Charitable Anthology, Mark C. Scioneaux, R.J. Cavender, & Robert S. Wilson (Cutting Block)
  • Slices of Flesh, Stan Swanson (Dark Moon)

Superior Achievement in a Collection

  • The Woman Who Married a Cloud: Collected Stories, Jonathan Carroll (Subterranean)
  • New Moon on the Water, Mort Castle (Dark Regions)
  • Errantry: Strange Stories, Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer)
  • The Janus Tree, Glen Hirshberg (Subterranean)
  • Black Dahlia and White Rose: Stories, Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

  • Writing Darkness, Michael Collings (self-published)
  • The Annotated Sandman, Volume 1, Les Klinger (Vertigo)
  • Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, Lisa Morton (Reaktion)
  • The Undead and Theology, Kim Paffenroth & John W. Morehead (Pickwick)
  • Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film, Kendall R. Phillips (Southern Illinois University Press)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

  • Dark Duet, Linda Addison & Stephen M. Wilson (NECON eBooks)
  • Notes from the Shadow City, Bruce Boston and Gary William Crawford (Dark Regions)
  • A Verse to Horrors, Michael Collings (self-published)
  • Vampires, Zombies & Wanton Souls, Marge Simon (Elektrik Milk Bath)
  • Lovers & Killers, Mary A. Turzillo (Dark Regions)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

  • The Sixth Gun Volume 3: Bound, Cullen Bunn (Oni Press)
  • Rachel Rising Vol. 1: The Shadow of Death, Terry Moore (Abstract Studio)
  • The Tale of Brin and Bent and Minno Marylebone, Ravi Thornton (Jonathan Cape)
  • Behind These Eyes, Peter J. Wacks & Guy Anthony De Marco (Villainous Press)
  • Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times, Rocky Wood & Lisa Morton (McFarland)

There were also nominees for superior achievement in a screenplay.

Horror Writers Association members will vote to determine winners. The Bram Stoker Awards for the 2012 calendar year will be presented at the 26th annual Bram Stoker Awards Banquet held during the Bram Stoker Awards Weekend 2013 Incorporating World Horror Convention in New Orleans LA on June 15, 2013.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

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News: EVIL DEAD Redband Teaser Trailer

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The new EVIL DEAD teaser trailer is out. I wasn’t too bothered about this film being made. I thought it was a bad idea, but hey, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are behind it. And the thought of a female Ash? If they can do the same as they did for Starbuck in BSG, it’ll work really well. But, it wouldn’t really be EVIL DEAD would it? Most remakes are pretty bad, and I guess I was expecting this to be the same.

Well, I just watched the teaser trailer and, ummm, well, just wow. Such a short clip;so much in there. It tells you; this is something you are familiar with, we’ve all been here before. Very quickly you realise though; same story, same setting, but this isn’t the cheap and cheesy gore of the original EVIL DEAD. This is, well … there were a couple of moments when I flinched, or felt a very strong urge to turn away. This is EVIL DEAD the ‘realistic’ version, I guess.

Frankly, it looked amazing. Totally disturbing, with the sort of imagery that tends to stick in your mind for years. And, you know, it looks so good that I don’t even know if I’ll actually be able to watch it (woos that I am).

Anyway, needless to say, this very short teaser trailer with so much packed in NOT SAFE FOR WORK. NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN. DO NOT SHOW IT TO YOUR GRANDMA!

Tales to Terrify Call for Submissions

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Horror podcast Tales to Terrify (now up to its 41st episode starring work from Tim Lebbon, and still going strong, with its first print volume forthcoming) is open to submissions. If you want to be part of this stellar show, read the submission guidelines at the site.

Previous shows have featured HP Lovecraft, Stephen King, Margo Lanagan, Kaaron Warren, and a truckload of other talent, so you would truly be aiming to keep good company with your submission. Good luck!

(On a personal note, this is my favourite horror podcast. Period.)

News: Midnight Echo Distribution Deal and Giveaways

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The News:

AHWA and JournalStone Publishing (JSP) have entered into an exclusive joint marketing agreement. AHWA and Midnight Echo magazine will be the exclusive Australian distributor of the quarterly magazine, Dark Discoveries, while JSP and Dark Discoveries Magazine will become the exclusive USA distributor of Midnight Echo. This means the pre-existing high premium that potential readers of each respective magazine have had to pay to receive the other periodical in their respective countries will be eliminated, making both magazines much more affordable and accessible/available for all. Look for availability on both the JSP and Midnight Echo websites soon, where you will be able to purchase the magazines individually or in a bundled offering that includes both Dark Discoveries and Midnight Echo.

The Giveaways:-

Midnight Echo is holding a subscription drive in the lead up to the much anticipated release of issue #8, with a swag of prizes to be won. Just take out a 1- or 2-year print subscription between now and November 30 and you will go into the draw to win the following:-

The winners will be announced on December 1. Go here for more details or to subscribe.