Awards

The Australian Horror Writers Association recently announced the winners for the 2015 Australian Shadows Awards, representing the very best in horror works produced by Australian and New Zealand writers in the calendar year of 2015. CSFG members taking home the incredibly cool Shadow Award statues this year included:

  • Best Short Story: Kaaron Warren for “Mine Intercom” (Review of Australian Fiction Volume 13: Issue 6)
  • The Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction: Alan Baxter for “In Vaulted Halls Entombed” (SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest)

We should also give a shout-out to Marty Young’s Blurring the Lines, which won the Shadow Award for Best Edited Work and includes stories by CSFG members…wait for it…Alan Baxter and Kaaron Warren.

Professional development

Leife Shallcross and Rob Porteous are both pleased to announce this week that they have been accepted into ACT Writers Centre ‘Hardcopy 2016’ professional development program for writers. Congratulations to Leife and Rob, and for any of our local members looking for some assistance with their novel manuscripts in 2017, check out the Hardcopy program.

Games and Interactive Fiction

A number of CSFG members are pursuing non-traditional writing gigs you may not have considered.

Matthew Farrer, Elizabeth Fitzgerald and Rik Lagarto all contributed to Under Quarantine, an expansion book for the Through the Breach roleplaying game from the Wyrd games company.

Felicity Banks  has written several new interactive fiction adventures recently:


Books

Dawn Meredith’s The Boy Who Went to War, a five-year project written in collaboration with 92 year old WWII veteran Jim Haynes, will be launching soon if you happen to be near the Blue Mountains: 2:00 pm on 30th April 30th at Wentworth Falls School of Arts.

The launch of Gillian Polack’s most recent work The Wizardry of Jewish Women has been deferred due to ill health and publication problems. Hopefully it’s no more than a temporary pause. (And get well soon Gillian!)

Workshops and Short Courses

Chris Andrews will be presenting a new short course at CIT Solutions this semester: Creating Compelling Characters. If you need to spice up your characters and turn them into people your readers will love (or hate!), check out Chris’ course.

Craig Cormick is presenting a free session at Gungahlin Library on Wednesday, 27 April, talking about “How to Make a Short Story Better”. Unfortunately the session is completely booked out, but keep an eye on the Gungahlin Library site for similar upcoming events.