Two of my fellow Clarion South students won awards – Angela Slatter for Best Collection and Lisa Hannett and Angela for the story they co-wrote.

The judges report has some nice things to say about the stories.
http://www.aurealisawards.com/judgesreports2010.pdf

The best part of the weekend was catching up with lots of writing friends and making some new friends.

I haven’t written many new short stories in the last year, my focus has been on writing my YA novel, The Way of Dragons.  Last weekend, I finally finished the first draft.  There is still a lot of work to be done revising it, but it’s a great feeling to get such a big chunk of the work out of the way.

The first draft came in at 105,000 words, which is a little long for a YA book.  The story’s basic premise involves a young man joining a monastery in order to find the cure for his sister that has been poisoned by a dragon.  It features encrypted dragon eggs, cloud painting monks and forbidden numbers.

After I’ve revised the novel I’ll be sending it out for crits.  After that I’ll have to decide what to do with the novel.  The traditional route would be to send it to an agent or publisher, but of course these days there are a plethora of web sites discussing the merits of self-publishing for ebook readers.  Although self-publishing options through Amazon are looking increasingly attractive, I’m still going to first pursue publication through one of the major houses.

It’s also great that a bunch of my fellow students (plus teachers) from Clarion South, along with some other writing friends, have been nominated as well.  It’s wonderful to be in the same company as the other nominated writers.  Just two years ago I attended the awards ceremony, as part of my time as Clarion.  Now to be a finalist is especially rewarding.

The complete list of the finalists.

http://www.aurealisawards.com/finalists2010.pdf

From the Aurealis Awards web site:

http://www.aurealisawards.com/

Some of Australia’s best SF writers have donated their works to raise money for the awards ceremony.

Some of the biggest names in Australian speculative fiction have generously given their novels and short stories for us to auction on Ebay!

Where else can you buy an original print from Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld or a bundle of autographed fantasy, science fiction or horror novels from a huge list of Aussie authors including: Sara Douglass, Ian Irvine, Sean Williams and Shane Dix, Traci Harding, Karen Miller, Stephen Irwin, Nathan Burrage, Richard Harland, Marianne De Pierres, Angela Slatter, Kate Forsyth, Isabel Merlin, Sophie Masson, Jack Dann, Kaaron Warren, Shane Jiraiya Cummings and Kirstyn McDermott?

The autographed books are being auctioned off in five book bundles. For a complete description of the contents of each bundle or to bid on one of these great items refer to the list of Ebay item numbers below and make sure you place your bid between 16 and 25 November, 2010.

Visit the Ebay Spec Fiction auction.

http://www.aurealisawards.com/finalists_winners.htm