(no subject)

Please to remember the Fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I meant to remember with sparklers' bright ember
Yes, I went and forgot.

(Yes, fireworks are outlawed here. No, I'm not a poet. Yes, it's so far outside my period and religion and everything that it would have been inappropriate, but we used to do the bonfire and firework thing when I was a kid and I turned nostalgic for fully five minutes and put sparklers on my shopping list. Yes, they were the wrong five minutes. Yes, it was the wrong shopping list. No, I'm not stupid. Really. Truly. Trust me on this.)

Aurealis Awards

If you've enjoyed Australian speculative fiction this year, you might want to check out the Aurealis Awards listings and make sure that the work you care about has been nominated. Nominations are only open for nine more days and we (judges) have tried very hard to find out about works in our categories and encourage nominations and think beyond the square but we're not omnipotent (well, some of the others may be, but I'm not). If a work isn't listed in the right category at this stage then tell the author (or better still, the publisher) and do it *now* so there's time to make a nomination. Or enter it yourself. Reader nominations are perfectly legal, though it does mean you have to get hold of copies of things for the judges.

Last year people complained when the Aurealis Awards missed some overseas publications and some small Aussie imprints and self-published works. This year there's no excuse. We've talked about it and asked people and anything we miss is because it's outside our ken and needs to be brought to someone's attention. If you're not sure about something, then email Ben Payne (the big boss - his email is on the Aurealis website) urgently and see if he knows about it.

Allowing for posting and people having to think, next week will be too late to agitate for your favourite work to be entered. And agitating the judges isn't going to help because we're doing all we can already (and we're in the Big Read section of the award season and yes, we read *all* the nominated works in our category). So do some creative nominations, or talk someone into pushing for their work to be considered, or email a publisher with a strong recommendation. If you're emailing publishers, I suggest you include why the Aurealis Awards are important, the category you think the work belongs in, and a reminder that things close very soon.

Check all the categories on the website first. Some stuff has been nominated for Children's that was in Young Adult last year, for instance. This means the publisher knows about deadlines and has made a conscious choice about categories.

You need to check here: http://www.fantasticqueensland.com/~aurealisawards/home.html

And you need to check NOW.