In the absence of context, I’m going with “really? Cool!”
So the nominations for the Australian Ditmar Awards have been released after a few weeks of my friends-list being packed with reminders to send in nominations and reminders about the 2008 works that are eligible. Unlike the Aurealis Awards, which I followed for years before I actually started writing SF, the Ditmars are something of a mystery to me – I lack the context to understand how they fit into the wider scheme of Australian fan culture and speculative fiction. I figured I’d get a chance to puzzle that out at while attending Conjecture, since that’s where they’re awarded this year. Then the list came out: Best New Talent ————— Peter M. Ball Felicity Dowker Jason Fischer Gary Kemble Amanda Pillar And you know what? Context for understanding or no, that’s kind of cool. I’m going to stump for the Fisch to win, of course, since he’s both a fine writer and the man who is putting me up during the con, but as
