• For a start, Sara was one of my author heroines.

• Secondly, this is the inaugural award.

• Thirdly, the award covers series written over a number of years, as long as they were completed between 2011 to 2014 — so it covers an awful lot of years and an awful lot of books… (Pity the judges!!) You can read more about the award here.  

No, that’s not me…but my name is on that trophy!!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there, owing to the arrival of a brand-new member of the family in New York, but I was prevailed upon to write an acceptance speech just in case, which you will find at the end of this post. It was delivered for me by a fellow writer, Donna Hanson (above), at the Aussi Natcon 2016 in Brisbane. And I believe there were celebrations…see photo left.

There were a lot more things I could have said in the speech — how much I owe to the then Voyager Australia editor, Stephanie Smith, for example. How much I owe my beta readers for making me a better writer and making those three books better works. How much I appreciate the work put into the awards by the Australian Spec Fic community and the judges.

But here’s what I did say:

When I first read Sara Douglass’s Battleaxe back in the 1990s, I was blown away, not just by the story, but also by the idea that an Australian author could publish a fantasy novel worldwide and find acclaim on a world stage.
At the time I was looking for a publisher for my first book — and Sara’s success was an inspiration. And of course, Battleaxe was just the first of long line of Sara’s groundbreaking novels.

I was delighted to hear that a series award was being created in her name, to acknowledge her pre-eminent position in Australian speculative fiction history. The fact that judges had a massive job of reading the number of series up for the award is a tribute to the present health of Speculative Fiction writing in Australia, a wave of creativity of which Sara was the forefront.

To have been short-listed by the judges for the inaugural award was a breath-taking compliment. The other works on that list are so impressive that I certainly don’t believe, as I write these words, that any work of mine could win. I just love the validation of being on the shortlist though, and I thank everyone involved.

Most of all, I wish you were here, Sara, still with us and still writing.

THE STORMLORD series (aka THE WATERGIVERS)
is on the Sara Douglass Award shortlist.

This is the inaugural award, in honour of one of Australia’s great fantasy writers, who made it huge on the international stage, and died far too young. It is really an honour to be one of the first writers to be considered for the award, and — win or not — I am truly humbled.

My latest book 

 is on the Aurealis shortlist for the Best Fantasy Novel (as well as on the Ditmar shortlist, as I mentioned on Monday). The difference between these two lists? The Ditmar is a reader voted award, and the Aurealis is a judged award.


This is my ninth shortlisting for the Aurealis for the Best Novel — without ever winning — which I suspect is some kind of record!

In short, this has been a terrific week for me. Will I win anything at all? I doubt it, as the books I’m up against are truly a wonderful selection by the best of Australia’s many talented writers (and in fact, there were many others who missed out, who could so easily have been chosen). It doesn’t matter. To know that judges and readers have loved my work enough to put them on a shortlist is the best compliment I could  have. 

 I would love to be there, to applaud the winners. Unhappily, a very important family commitment/celebration means that I will be unable to attend the awards ceremony, and I really do regret that the two occasions clash.