March is upon us! Did we skip all of February? It sure feels like it. Blink and you’ll miss it. Luckily, CSFG is the place to be for exploring the horrors of the endless, unceasing march of time. Last month we celebrated alongside Australia’s spec fic writers at the Aurealis awards, and now are counting down the days to the Ditmars. A year of excitement is racing towards us at a speed that is frankly alarming.
President’s Update
Greetings you Princums of Parentheses! You Sovrums of the Speculative.
This past month has seen such wonderful things for our writers. Let me start by congratulating everyone that was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award! I also want to thank Jason Botta who was our guest speaker for February’s general meeting. We’ve had some great short stories come into short story critique group this past month, and we have no shortage of short stories to crit this coming month. If you’re interested in being part of the crit groups follow us on Discord for the details. Our movie watch of Hackers on the 27th was a blast of 90s sci-fi nostalgia. Thanks to all those who came! We’ve got another great movie lined up for the last Friday of March, we will keep you posted on what it will be. We’re also going to set up a time for our new graphic novel club to meet up soon, if you’d like to join us in our discussion of SFSX by Tina Horn go check out your local comic book shop and hit them up for a copy and we will announce a time to talk in March!
May your ink and inspiration ever flow.
- Americo Alvarenga (El Presidente)
February Meeting Recap: Game Writing & CSFG’s New AI Policy
This month’s general meeting had our special guest Jason Botta who is the Principal Designer at Crystal Dynamics. He talked to us about the ins and outs of writing for video games and how to get into the gaming industry today. Thanks again Jason for such a great meeting and we hope to have him back soon.
The second part of the meeting had the conversation of our AI Policy. We want to thank everyone for your discussion and feedback. The Policy was voted in by membership with the understanding that updates will be made to some of the wording. As we finish reworking the policy, if you have thoughts you would like to share with the committee, or feedback on any specific wording, we encourage you to send us an email at [email protected].
March Meeting Announcement: Action with Alan Baxter!
Does your story have a lot of action? Are your swashbucklers buckling under the weight of their tricornes because of all the description they’re carrying? Do your space wizards have enough time between swings to contemplate why their laser swords stop at a certain length? Writing action can be hard, even daunting. But don’t fret folx! We’ve got you covered.
This month we will have the one and only Alan Baxter to come talk to us about writing action in spec-fic! Alan is a mutli-award winning British-Australian author of more than twenty novels and novellas and over one hundred short stories, encompassing horror, weird fiction, dark fantasy, crime and more. He’s also a martial artist, whisky-soaked swear monkey, metalhead and dog lover. Alan will come talk to us about making your action in story writing be more John Wick puppy-loving-motivation awesomesauce and less slow-mo Snyderverse Cut of watching Jonathon Kent die for some reason.
Our general meeting will be 7pm on Wednesday 18 March at the Burns Club in Kambah. Link to the online meeting will be posted on csfg.groups.io and our Discord server before the meeting. We look forward to seeing you there!
Aurealis Awards Round-up
CSFG wants to congratulate Guild member T.R. Napper and fellow Canberran Freya Marske for their wins at the Aurealis awards! T.R. Napper took home Best Science Fiction Novella for The Hidden God (Asimov’s Science Fiction), and Freya claimed Best Fantasy Novella for Cinder House (Pan MacMillan). The awards were held in Brisbane this year, as GenreCon and the Queensland Writers Centre became the new stewards of the award into the future. Congratulations to all the winners and shortlisted authors, and we can’t wait to see who is in the line-up for next year!
March Book Club: The Hollow Places
This month’s book has been voted in! We are excited to be reading The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher. For those of you coming along on the journey, we have set up a StoryGraph buddy read where people can share their thoughts and mark their progress until the book club meeting. You can join the buddy read here: The Hollow Places Buddy Read.
The meeting will be held on 24 Mar 2025 from 7pm at the Civic Library next to Canberra Theatre, as well as on Zoom for those joining remotely – further details to follow on our Discord channel #book-club.
Nominations Open for the 2026 Ditmar Awards
Swancon organisers have announced that the 2026 Ditmar awards are now open for nominations!
The 2026 Ditmar Awards are open to work first published in the 2025 calendar year. Eligibility to nominate Nominations will be accepted from natural persons active in fandom, and from full or supporting members of Swancon 50 – the 2026 Natcon to be held in Perth. https://www.swancon.com.au/
You may nominate as many times in as many categories as you like, although you may only nominate a particular person or work once. You may wish to use the 2025 Aurealis entries list as a reminder of eligible published works but please note it is unlikely to be complete. https://aurealisawards.org/entries/
Nominations close 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time Monday 30 March 2026. Click below to submit a 2026 Ditmar Awards nomination: https://form.jotform.com/260567334914865
We will be setting up a csfg.groups.io thread and Discord thread where you can share your eligible works, and find out what you can nominate our members for!
New: Writer Seeking Writer
Are you a writer in need of feedback? Do you want out of session advice or collaboration? Are you a reader looking to read something hot off the press?
Writer Seeking Writer (WSW) is a forum on our Discord for CSFG members to seek feedback on their work, find collaborative partners, or connect with fellow writers to share progress and stay accountable. For readers, this is a chance to practice your constructive critique skills, and see some amazing writing before it is published more widely. This is also a place where people can seek out subject matter experts, sensitivity readers, or help in other ways from the CSFG community.
You can find the forum in our discord channel, accessible to all CSFG members.
Novel Critique: Readers Wanted!
Thank you to everyone who submitted their manuscripts for critique this year! We have a full slate of authors putting their babies on the line through to November, but we can always use more readers. If you’re interested, check out the novelcrit subgroup on csfg.groups.io or reach out in the Discord! Our first meeting in February involved a fantastic discussion of a middle grade science fiction adventure, and in March, we’re reading a spooky paranormal thriller. See you there!
Upcoming events
Wednesday 4th March – Short Story Critique Group: 7pm (online) (stories due the Sunday before)
Wednesday 11th March – Novel Critique Group: 7pm (online)
Saturday 14th March- Scribbles and Nibbles: 10am, National Library of Australia, Parkes (in person)
Wednesday 18th March – Monthly Meeting: 7pm, Burns Club, Kambah (hybrid)
Tuesday 24th March – Book Club: 7pm, Mezzanine Community Room, Civic Library, Canberra (hybrid)
Wednesday 25th March – Short Story Critique Group: 7pm (online) (stories due the Sunday before)
Friday 27th March – Movie Night: 8pm (online)
Saturday 28th March – Scribbles and Nibbles: 10am, National Library of Australia, Parkes (in person)
Wednesday 1st April – Short Story Critique Group: 7pm (online) (stories due the Sunday before)
For information about any of these events or activities, reach out to us at [email protected] or message a committee member on Discord.
Note: links to join hybrid meetings online are shared through csfg.groups.io and the CSFG Discord server.
This month’s feature image was lovingly hand crafted from the finest stock images by your humble Secretary, Fionn MacPherson. If you want to have your art featured in the newsletter (fully credited and with links to socials), you can reach out and let us know! The bad photo edits are only going to get worse, so we do encourage you to do so.