General Governance

[Updated 17 August, 2007]

The Aurealis Awards are administered by Fantastic Queensland on behalf of Chimaera Publications. The Fantastic Queensland Aurealis Awards Management Committee is responsible for the overall governance of the awards as stipulated by contract. This governance includes the Aurealis Awards ceremony as well as the nomination and judging process.

The day-to-day running of the Aurealis Awards will be delegated to an Awards Director who will be chosen by Management Committee. Application to become the Awards Director is via a public expression of interest process; any member of the public may apply.
The Awards Director may not serve on the Fantastic Queensland Aurealis Awards Management Committee whilst holding the directorship.

The shortlisting and selection of nominations is the responsibility of selected judging panels. Each panel will consist of at least three members, including a designated panel convenor. Panel sizes may vary among categories and from year to year depending on the perceived workload required and interest in the positions.

Judges will be selected by Fantastic Queensland following an expression of interest process. This process will open to all interested participants. The Management Committee reserves the right not to appoint a nominee and may seek additional judges should it be deemed necessary following the closure of the public nomination process.

A detailed "Guidelines for Judges" document is available here
(Click to download PDF/Word document).

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Dispute Resolution

It is anticipated that most disputes will be resolved by consensus within the judging panels or with the assistance of the Awards Director.

Should a resolution not be achieved, the matter may be referred to the Fantastic Queensland Aurealis Awards Management Committee. In such cases, the decision of the committee is final and binding.

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Nominations

To be eligible, works must have been written by an Australian citizen or permanent resident and first published in English in the period under consideration. In the case of co-authored works, at least one of the authors must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident. The work must meet all other eligibility critiera and be a true co-authorship (for example, Australian involvement may not be limited to illustration only).

Works must be nominated to be considered.

Nominated works will be judged solely on merit as seen by the panel members.

Anyone may nominate a work or suggest to the Awards Director that a work be considered. All nominations will be circulated amongst the convenors, who may nominate additional works.

A novel or short story written by a judge is automatically ineligible to be nominated for an award in that year in the division for which the person is a judge. It is still eligible to be nominated in other divisions.

There is no fee to nominate novels/short stories for the awards.

One copy of each novel/short story must be sent to EACH of the judges on the relevant panel/s. (In the case of small press publications the editor/ publisher nominating the magazine/anthology in the award may contact the convenor of the relevant panel/s to arrange for the judges to share copies. This will be done at the discretion of the panel convenor.)

When multiple printed copies of the work/s are difficult or expensive to obtain, nominators (particularly individual authors or small presses) may be permitted to submit electronic versions of the works. Electronic submissions may be accepted for short stories up to 7,500 words and will be at the discretion of Awards Director. Electronic versions must be the final, published text and proof of publication may be sought before an electronic submission is forwarded to judges. Contact the Awards Director at director@aurealisawards.com to request electronic submission.

The Awards Director and judges are under no obligation to notify nominees if works cannot be considered because they are deemed ineligible under the guidelines.

If a work is released too late in the year to be considered by the panel (ie, after Wednesday, 31 October 2007), it will be eligible for consideration in the following year's awards. However, if one panel has considered a work eligible for a particular year, and the official date of publication as given on the copyright page is that year, this work becomes ineligible for any awards the following year.

In other words, the same work cannot be entered in two consecutive years.

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Conflict of Interest

Any work by a judge in a relevant panel, the Awards Director, the Assistant Director or a member of the Fantastic Queensland Aurealis Awards Management Committee is automatically ineligible for nomination.

This ineligibility applies only to works written by the person involved. For example, if the editor or publisher of an anthology or magazine is on a panel, stories in the anthology or magazine not written by him/her are still eligible, but anything written by him/her is not.

Works by a judge will only be ineligible in a category in which he/she is a member of the judging panel.

Should a judge have any concerns about their eligibility or the appropriateness of reviewing a particular work, they should raise them with their panel convenor, who will then discuss the matter with the Awards Director and make a ruling. This ruling will be considered final.

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Blogs, Websites, Reviews, Critiques and Other Public Comments

Judges, the Awards Director, the Assistant Directors and members of the Fantastic Queensland Aurealis Awards Management Committee may externally review or critique works which may be eligible for nomination. These reviews or critiques may take the form of blogs, printed reviews, discussion panels and similar activities.

However, as it is important that the awards maintain a level of independence and impartiality, all such reviews should contain a disclaimer emphasising that these are the personal opinions of the reviewer involved and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the panel, the Awards Director or the Fantastic Queensland Aurealis Awards Management Committee.

Similarly, we ask that judges refrain from commenting on shortlisted works within their division between the date the shortlist is publicly released (Friday, 7 December 2007) and the announcement of the winners at the awards ceremony (Saturday, 26 January 2008).

The Awards Director, the Assistant Director/s and members of the Fantastic Queensland Aurealis Awards Management Committee should refrain from commenting on all shortlisted works within this time frame.

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