Aurealis Awards finalists and winners in each category are selected by our judges.

Panel sizes may vary among categories – and from year to year – depending on the perceived workload required and the availability of judges for a particular category. However, each panel will consist of at least three judges one of which will be the panel convenor.

Judges are volunteers and are drawn from the speculative fiction community; from diverse professions and backgrounds, and may include academics, booksellers, librarians, published authors, publishing industry professionals, reviewers and enthusiasts. The only qualification necessary is a demonstrated knowledge of and interest in their chosen category.

Being an Aurealis Awards judge involves reading entries in a single category, which may comprise several dozen novels and/or more than a hundred short stories in the process of evaluating the year’s entries. Judges may keep their reading copies of entries.

It is vital that judges be able to work as part of a team and meet stringent deadlines. Most of the judges’ discussions are conducted via an online forum or email.

All discussions are confidential between the judges in each panel and the judging coordinator and/or the Aurealis Awards management team, as required. The Aurealis Awards judging coordinator will have no input into these decisions unless a panel of judges is unable to reach a consensus.

Judges from previous Aurealis Awards processes are welcome – indeed encouraged – to re-apply. But, in the interests of transparency and impartiality, no one may judge the same category for more than two consecutive years, and a break of two consecutive years is required before a judge can reapply to be a judge in that particular category again.

Because fantasy and science fiction are the largest categories, they have been split into two separate judging panels, one for novels and one for short stories.

Judges for the Aurealis Awards may choose to accept some works electronically. This is at the discretion of each individual judge, with the default preference being print unless otherwise advised.

The winner of the Peter McNamara Convenors' Award for Excellence will be reached by a consensus of the convenors of each of the judging panels.

Each judge receives one complimentary ticket (non-transferrable) to the Aurealis Awards 2012 ceremony to be held in late April/early May 2013 in Sydney.

2012 Judging Panels

Judging Coordinator: Tehani Wessely

Bios 2012

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Science Fiction: Novel

convenor - Alex Adsett
Alex Adsett is a publishing consultant and literary agent with over 15 years experience in publishing and bookselling.  She offers business and contract advice to authors, publishers and booksellers, helping them review and negotiate their contracts, including print and ebook publishing agreements, and film, overseas and translation subsidiary rights. She has worked as a specialist science fiction and fantasy bookseller in Australia and the UK, and is passionate about the ongoing publication of Australian spec fic authors.  Alex is a regular presenter at writers’ festivals around Australia, contributes articles to a number of publications and has been an Aurealis Judge since 2007. She is often to be found on twitter at @adsett or via her website http://www.alexadsett.com.au

Lorraine Cormack 
Lorraine Cormack is an eager and enthusiastic book reviewer, currently including regular reviews for ASiF. She is an avid reader across all genres and enjoys discovering good writers who are new to her. She is a founding member of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, and a returning judge for the Aurealis Awards. She lives with her family.

Alexandra Pierce
Alexandra Pierce is a teacher of History and English. She is a long-time fan of science fiction, stretching right back to reading Riddle of the Trumpalar with its time-travelling siblings when very young. Alex has been writing reviews for nearly as long, and currently does so for the websites Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus (ASif!) and Strange Horizons, as well as on her own blog (http://www.randomalex.net). She is also one third of the podcast Galactic Suburbia (galactisuburbia.podbean.com), recently Hugo-nominated and recognised with the Peter McNamara Convenor's Award at the 2011 Aurealis Awards.

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Science Fiction: Short Story

convenor - Ben Payne
Ben Payne (convenor) is a local writer, editor and publisher. He has been honourably mentioned Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Horror, and has edited or co-edited numerous publications, including Potato Monkey, ASIM, Aurealis, Dog vs Sandwich, Moonlight Tuber and various publications for Twelfth Planet Press. He has been a judge on the Aurealis Awards for the last ten years, and convened the Awards on one occasion. His favourite fish is the dugong, and his favourite angle is obtuse.

DJ Daniels
Dorothy-Jane Daniels lives by the edge of a tiny bit of bush in Sydney. She writes when she manages to get her husband and two daughters out of the house and during lulls in the dog-lizard wars. Her first novel, What the Dead Said, published by Dragonfall Press, is set in a near future Sydney populated by ghosts and other untoward characters. She is working on a second novel and has also embarked on a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at University of Technology, Sydney. zombiejungle.wordpress.com 

Cat Sparks
Cat Sparks is fiction editor of Cosmos Magazine. She managed Agog! Press, an Australian independent press that produced ten anthologies of new speculative fiction from 2002-2008. A graduate of the inaugural Clarion South Writers’ Workshop, she was a Writers of the Future prize winner in 2004. Cat has received a total of seventeen Aurealis and Ditmar awards for writing, editing and art including the Peter McNamara Conveners Award 2004. She was the convenor of the Aurealis Awards horror division in 2006 and a judge in the anthologies and collected work category in 2009. Her story ‘All the Love in the World’ was reprinted in Hartwell and Kramer’s Years Best Science Fiction, Volume 16. She was the recipient of an Australia Council emerging writers grant in 2011 and is currently a provisional candidate for a Doctorate of Philosophy – Media,Culture and Creative Arts through Curtin University. Find her on wikipedia

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Fantasy: Novel

convenor - Helen Merrick
Helen Merrick (convenor) is a SF/F critic, reader and fan. Her book The Secret Feminist Cabal was shortlisted for a Hugo. By day she teaches at Curtin University in Western Australia. By night she reads way too much speculative fiction, mostly for fun.

Joe Marsden
Born and raised in Brisbane but extensively travelled, Joe Marsden has worked in the media, film and publishing industries and has over a decade of professional experience. In 2009 he served on the judging panel for the Horror Category, enjoying it immensely. His deep love of speculative fiction thrills his friends and scares his relatives but he enjoys reading all kinds of tales and in all forms. He also possesses an impressive beard and wastes an inordinate amount of time on social media. He studies German, mainly for the swearing. You can follow him on Twitter: @commissarJoe

Cathie Tasker
Cathie Tasker has always been a devotee of speculative fiction. As a child she read Patricia Wrightson’s Down to Earth which made a strong impression on her and began her fascination with SF & F. She quickly read every speculative fiction title she could find and continues to immerse herself in the genre. A prodigious reader across many genres, she always chooses fantasy first. Cathie was once a public librarian, book club editor, fiction editor, children’s book publisher and she now works as a creative writing teacher and freelance editor. Cathie feels that she has found her calling as an editor: “I’m the Spock, not the Kirk”.

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Fantasy: Short Story

convenor - Kathryn Linge
Kathryn Linge (convenor) is a university academic and an avid reader. She was nominated for the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review in 2007 and has been an Aurealis Awards judge since 2008. Kathryn has won Ditmars for contributing the 2007 and 2010 Snapshots of Australian Speculative Fiction, in which up to 90 people in the Australian speculative fiction scene were interviewed within a single week. Kathryn is also involved in the 2012 Snapshot, which will be published in June and promises to be the biggest Snapshot yet.

Peter Hickman
Peter Hickman is a Melbourne writer who has been active in the Melbourne speculative fiction scene for about 10 years, as part of the SupaNova writers' group. He is currently studying an Arts degree that will involve (eventually) doing an in-depth study of the Australian Spec Fic landscape and was the convening judge for Fantasy Novel category of the Aurealis Awards in 2010.

Tanya Walker
Tania Walker is an author/illustrator and has been a lifelong friend of the written word since age four, when she first wrote her initials in Liquid Paper on the side of her parents’ house. Since then she’s embarked on a haphazard career of artistic and literary adventure, including: working for Walt Disney Animation Australia, designing naughty toys and novelties, creating art for poker machines, and coding websites for the university where she also studies. She’s had one fantasy short story published and hopes that reading a couple hundred more of the same might keep her out of trouble for a bit.

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Horror

convenor: Stephanie Gunn
Stephanie Gunn (convenor) is a writer, reviewer and lapsed (mad) scientist. She is a past Aurealis and Australian Shadows judge and currently reviews for ASiF. She is mother to one little boy who she and her husband are dying to expose to SF as he gets older. She can be found online at www.stephaniegunn.com

Emma Kate
Emma Kate is a qualified teacher librarian with 10 years of experience. She lives with her daughter in Southern Tasmania and recently completed Honours in Classics. Emma has had one piece of short fiction published, and was a judge for the Swancon 2011 short story competition and Aurealis Awards judge for Fantasy Novel 2011. She reads every night before sleep and sometimes instead of.

Rob Riel
Rob Riel has been an avid reader of SF since the days when a young bloke could buy the latest Heinlein or Asimov novel for well under a dollar. He’s been a (very occasional) contributor of short fiction to the genre, and for some years managed the SFWoE competition in Australia. Rob has worked as a sailor, metallurgist, university lecturer in English, electron microscopist, and disability services specialist. Ten years ago he established Picaro Press, which specialises in poetry publication using print-on-demand technology. He has twice received Australia Council grants for New Work, and has published two books. Rob lives in Cardiff, NSW, with partner Judy Johnson, whose second novel has just been accepted by Harper Collins for their Fourth Estate imprint.

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Young Adult

convenor: Lyn Battersby
Lyn Battersby (convenor) is a published short story author and editor. Her work has been nominated for several awards and has appeared both in Australia and Overseas. She has served as a judge for the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards.

Lynne Lumsden Green
Lynne Lumsden Green has been an Aurealis judge on three previous occasions, and felt brave enough to dip her toes back into the waters. She is a jobbing editor with Morrigan Books, has had several short stories published in anthologies, and has worked as a volunteer for ‘Voices on the Coast’ and ‘Reality Bites’. She recently completed a degree in Creative Writing with the University of the Sunshine Coast. Currently, she is in the process of writing and rewriting a Steampunk YA novel and a writing a parody of the YA paranormal romance genre. Adult fairy tales and Steampunk are her two favourite genres when she is writing, and she is happiest writing when she isn’t reading. Her goal is be a published author loved by millions (don’t we all).

Gillian Polack
Gillian Polack writes, edits, reviews, teaches, critiques and sometimes eats speculative fiction. One day she will learn how to breathe it. She has two novels published, has edited two anthologies, has written a speculative fiction-related food history volume for Conflux (the Canberra science fiction convention) and has fifteen published short stories. She is also an historian, with a PhD in medieval history and a strong interest in food history, matters Arthurian and almost anything that involves stories. She has a fortnightly column for the online magazine BiblioBuffet. This is Gillian's fourth term as an Aurealis judge. She is currently undertaking an SF-based doctorate at the University of Western Australia.

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Children's

convenor: Jennifer Hegedus
Jennifer Hegedus (convenor) is a primary school teacher currently working as a specialist in the library. She has worked in both NSW and in Queensland where she has been able to experience all roles as a primary school teacher. Her mission is to encourage children to read for pleasure and to experience the fantastic world of books outside of the classroom. Jennifer has worked as a teacher, librarian, postal worker, waitress, paper deliverer, junk mail sorter etc etc. She is a mother of six beautiful children and a grandmother of five of the most amazing grandchildren. Jennifer is an avid reader and any spare time you will find her with a book curled up on her favourite reading chair.

Joy Lawn
Joy Lawn is fascinated by ideas and images and how authors and artists express these with truth and originality. She reviews for The Australian, Australian Book Review, Australian Bookseller + Publisher, where she also writes a poetry column, and Magpies magazine. She speaks about literature at conferences and other forums and some of her favourite times of the year are spent chairing sessions at the SWF and BWF. Joy has an MA in Children’s Literature and Literacy, with a particular interest in speculative fiction. Her vision is to see children’s and young adult literature, including quality graphic novels, further recognised in the wider community. Joy writes the annual Inside the Shortlist, which looks at the Children’s Book Council of Australia shortlisted books. qld.cbca.org.au/insidethesl.htm%20 She blogs at www.thebooksnitch.wordpress.com/.

Tim McEwan
Tim McEwen is a film storyboard and concept artist, illustrator, cartoonist, graphic designer and comic book creator. Being professionally published since he was 17 years old. His most notable comic book creation is Greener Pastures (with Michael Michalandos), starring the naive, loveable stud bull Trevor Bovis. It was nominated for 16 OzCon Awards, winning two, has been featured in four exhibitions, and has fans worldwide. Currently Tim art directs Supanova Pop Culture Expo (co-founded in 2002 with Daniel Zachariou), which expects 100,000+ attendees around Australia this year. Tim is also working on a 200+ page graphic novel featuring the Greener Pastures characters and concepts. He's the proud father of two kids and has an understanding wife who hasn't thrown out his collection of 9000 comic books.

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Illustrated work/Graphic novel

convenor: Deborah Biancotti
Deborah Biancotti (convenor) is an anarchic reader and award-winning writer based in Sydney. Her first published story won an Aurealis Award and her first collection, A Book of Endings, was shortlisted for the William L. Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy book. She’s also served on the committees of the Conflux convention and Speculative Literature Foundation. She can be found online at deborahbiancotti.net.

Andrew Finch
Andrew Finch has read speculative fiction since the early 1980s and discovered fandom with the first two Thylacons in 1995 and 1998, going on to help organize Thylacon 2005.  He was a founding member of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and was actively involved in the magazine from 2002 to 2009.  He now produces Galactic Suburbia, the Hugo-nominated feminist SF podcast. Andrew was introduced to graphic novels with Watchmen sometime in the early nineties, reading the whole trade paperback for the first time in a single sitting.  Favourite graphic novels since then have included V for Vendetta, Return of the Dark Knight, From Hell and more recently Sandman, Logicomix, The Ultimates and She Hulk.  He is delighted to have two daughters 7 and 2 who are actively interested in Doctor Who and superheroes.

Kaaron Warren
Kaaron Warren’s short story collection The Grinding House (CSFG Publishing) won the ACT Writers’ and Publishers’ Fiction Award and two Ditmar Awards. Her second collection, Dead Sea Fruit, published by Ticonderoga Books, won the ACT Writers’ and Publishers’ Fiction Award. Her critically acclaimed novel Slights (Angry Robot Books) won the Australian Shadows Award, the Ditmar Award and the Canberra Critics’ Award for Fiction. Angry Robot Books also published her novels Walking the Tree and Mistification, both shortlisted for a Ditmar Award. She has been named Special Guest for the Australian National Science Fiction Convention in 2013, and her latest book is Through Splintered Walls, out in June from Twelfth Planet Press. She recently acted as a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards. Kaaron lives in Canberra, Australia, with her husband and children. Her website iskaaronwarren.wordpress.com and she tweets @KaaronWarren.

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Anthology and collection

convenor: Katharine Stubbs
Katharine Stubbs (convenor) is a reviewer for Hachette Australia and the fantasy writing website/forum Mythic Scribes. She currently writes, interviews and judges short stories for the website Shades of Sentience and has done so since its creation. Some day, Katharine would like to be a published author but until then, she is happy re-writing her many current manuscripts, reading as much as possible, and travelling.

Matthew Chrulew
Matthew Chrulew is a humanities researcher and prog rock aficionado who lives in Sydney’s north. He has published over twenty short stories. His 2010 novella The Angælien Apocalypse (Twelfth Planet Press) was a finalist in the Aurealis Awards. Other stories have been shortlisted in the Australian Shadows Award and reprinted in year’s bests. He blogs at matthewchrulew.wordpress.com/

Sarah JH Fletcher
A lifelong fan of speculative fiction, Sarah JH Fletcher (formerly Sarah Hazelton) has several years of inhouse editing experience under her belt. She is currently living the rockstar freelance lifestyle. Sarah works on a broad range of fiction and non-fiction titles for adults and young people, specialising in ebooks and anything that involves worldbuilding.

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