SpecFicNZ – Tim Jones

I have been a very naughty boy.

Well, a slightly naughty boy, anyway. I meant to put up a post about the opportunity to nominate works and people for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards as far back as the end of January, and yet I’m only now getting around to it. Sorry for leaving it so late!

The Sir Julius Vogel Awards are the New Zealand awards for speculative fiction, awarded at each year’s New Zealand national science fiction convention. I was very pleased when Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, the anthology I co-edited with Mark Pirie, won in the Best Collected Work category in the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Awards.

Given that the deadline for nominations is the end of March (to be precise, it’s 31 March 2011 at 8.00pm), I’m going to abandon my always-likely-to-be-unrealistic plan of taking a comprehensive look at potential nominees, and just tell you what I’m going to nominate in a few of the categories. Because NZ speculative fiction is so strong at the moment, there are lots of good books/stories/people out there for you to nominate, and I encourage you to go for it! (Suggestions, in any category, are welcome below in the comments).

First of all, SFFANZ and SpecFicNZ have details of the nomination process. The 2010 awards show the categories.

Semaphore Magazine has a guide to eligible works it has published, and Helen Lowe published a very useful guide to the categories, plus a list of some eligible novels in the Adult and YA categories.

The SFFANZ site has a number of lists of potentially eligible works – look at the works published in 2010 in each list.

So that’s plenty of information to be going on with. Here are the works I’m planning to nominate at this stage – I am sure I’ll think of others when I’m face to face with the nomination form:

– Best Adult Novel: The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe

– Best Young Adult Novel: Tymon’s Flight by Mary Victoria

– Best Collected Work: A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, edited by Anna Caro and Juliet Buchanan

– Best Short Story: “Back and Beyond” by Juliet Marillier, the final story in A Foreign Country.

Time To Write One Of Next Year’s Nominees!

While you’re making your nominations, take a moment to check out the inaugural SpecFicNZ short story contest, which also closes on 31 March.

Plenty of highlights at Au Contraire today – some of which I attended, and others of which I heard about – but a diminishing level of energy to blog about them. So hey ho, let’s go.

SpecFicNZ

The new Speculative Fiction Writers of New Zealand organisation, best known as SpecFicNZ, was launched this evening by Ripley Patton and other members of the SpecFicNZ team. As the organisation’s web page says,

SpecFicNZ is the association for creators, writers and editors of speculative fiction in or from New Zealand.

It was founded in March 2009 by Ripley Patton and eleven other humans passionate about promoting and encouraging the speculative fiction genre in their own country.

All their work since 2009 has paid off in an organisation that seems to be well focused on meeting the needs of NZ speculative fiction writers in general, and emerging writers in particular. There was a long queue of people joining up after Ripley’s speech, and as one of those newly-signed-up members, I’m looking forward to what happens next.

Getting Published in New Zealand

My talk on this topic, part of the excellent writers’ stream at the Convention, was on at the same time as Elizabeth Knox’s Guest of Honour speech – which was a pity, as I would have liked to attend this, and heard afterwards that she spoke very well.

Nonetheless, about 20 people attended my talk. It isn’t easy to get speculative fiction published in New Zealand, although the recent advent of an NZ speculative fiction magazine (Semaphore) and an NZ science fiction publisher (Random Static) is beginning to make a major difference.

I explained how, in various unlikely ways, I had managed to get quite a few SF stories – including Transported, a short story collection that’s between 1/3 and 1/2 SF – published by “mainstream” fiction publishers and magazines here, and suggested some strategies to follow for doing this: strategies which seemed to chime with the experience of others around the table. I’m going to write this talk up for SpecFicNZ.

Why I Am Not A Bookseller

Some people have got the knack of selling books at sales tables. I haven’t. At the Convention’s Floating Market, I shared a sales table with Pat Whitaker and Lee Pletzers. They sold books. I didn’t… until right at the end. As soon as I started to pack my books away, people came up to buy them!

So I think I have discovered the secret to successful bookselling: every ten minutes, start to pack all your books away. Then, when the purchasers lured by this move have bought their books and moved on, put all your books out again. Repeat every ten minutes, and wealth shall be yours!

Tomorrow…

… I want to catch up with lots of people I know are attending the Con, but whom I haven’t seen yet. I am moderating a panel on SF poetry with the excellent Janis Freegard and Harvey Molloy. I am doing a live Q&A with Patrick Nielsen Hayden. And, at 10am, I have to explain why “Joss Whedon Is My Master Now”. I’m going to advance the radical thesis that it’s Jed Whedon, Zack Whedon and Mo Tancharoen Whedon we should really be watching out for… sorry, Joss!

Tag: SpecFicNZ

The Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2011: Nomination Deadline Fast Approaching

Blogging Au Contraire: Day Two: SpecFicNZ launch, Getting Published in NZ Panel, Why I’m Not A Bookseller