The Ditmars: Time to Vote for Your Favorite Australian Speculative Fiction Stories

It’s time to vote for the Ditmars Awards for stories and articles published by Australians in 2008. The awards are open from now until May 4 and the rules are explained here. Shane Jiraiya Cummings has posted a news item about nominations and award categories on HorrorScope.

Nominations are very simple, just email them to ditmars@conjecture2009.org. All you need to do is list the work, author or editor and the publisher or venue from anything you read and enjoyed by an Australian. You can nominate as many times as you want in as many categories as you want. You can even nominate yourself.

To be able to nominate you need to be seen as a person active in fandom, such as being an editor, publisher or writer, or as simple as having attended a convention for being a member of a professional organisation such as the Australian Horror Writers Association.

If you want to vote for anything I wrote in 2008, here is the list with all the appropriate information you need to cut and paste into your nominations email:

Novella Category:

• “Soft Viscosity” in 2012 (Twelfth Planet Press).

Short Story Category:

• "Terraformer" in Andromeda Spaceways #37
• “Cactus” in Midnight Echo #1 (Australian Horror Writers Association)
• “Redemption Slot Machine” in Antipodean SF #117 (read the story here)
• “Homo Canis” in 2008 Award Wining Australian Writing (it won the Australian Horror Writers Association’s Flash Fiction Award in 2007 and will be reprinted in the next issue of Midnight Echo)
• “Hell’s Ambassador" (in five parts) in Black Box with the first story (originally published on the Brimstone Press website) reproduced below.

The William Atheling Jr Award:

• "Cthulhu Cultus Australis: The Australian Perspective on H. P. Lovecraft" with Leigh Blackmore and Chuck McKenzie in Studies in Australian Weird Fiction 2, 2008

If you are eligible to vote and are interested in reading any of the above stories, please email me and I’ll make a copy of the story or article available to you. I'm not going to comment on who I will likely vote for or why, predominately because I don't believe I've read widely enough in all the categories (or any category) to be able to comment objectively (but I will still vote).

Thanks for voting, and if you vote for me, thank you for that too.

HELL'S AMBASSADOR I. NOT DEAD

The senator stormed into the office of Hell’s Ambassador, with half his skull missing. The smoking shotgun hung limp in his blood-soaked hands.

“I’m not dead?”

“No, you’re not.”

“I can’t take it anymore! The lies, the scandals, the looming criminal prosecutions.” He shot himself again, through the heart, splattering red meat on the oak furnishings. “Just take my soul now, take me to Hell? Release me from my horrors here!”

“No!” Hell’s Ambassador shouted. “I keep my souls with me on Earth. Too many demons downstairs would claim you as their own. I’m never there to keep them in line.”

Desperate, the senator shot himself again, disintegrating the other half of his skull. “Bastard!” he bellowed, as blood gushed from his mouth.