Aurealis Awards
| Aurealis Award | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Awarded for | Excellence in speculative fiction |
| Location | Australia |
| Country | Australia |
| Presented by |
Chimaera Publications Conflux Inc |
| First awarded | 1996 (for 1995) |
| Official website | Aurealisawards.org |
The Aurealis Award for Excellence in Speculative Fiction is an annual literary award for Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction. Only Australians are eligible for the award.
The Aurealis Award was established in 1995 by Chimaera Publications, the publishers of Aurealis Magazine. Unlike the other major Australian speculative fiction award, the Ditmar Award, it divides work into subgenre and age categories, and is judged as such.
The award was originally given out in the following divisions: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Young Adult. Two separate awards are given in each of those divisions, one for novels and one for short stories. A fifth division for Children's books was added in 2001 for fiction for 8-12 year olds, with separate awards for "Short Fiction" and "Long Fiction". With the 2008 Awards the "Short Fiction" children's fiction category became a category for "Illustrated Work/Picture Book". For the 2010 Awards, the two categories became one for children's fiction told primarily through pictures and another for children's fiction told primarily through words. For the 2013 Awards, the two categories were merged into a single category for children's books. The Young Adult and Children's categories cover books in all three speculative fiction genres.
Submissions within a division are reviewed by a three judge panel, which selects each year's finalists and winners for their respective division. One of the judges on each panel is also the panel Convenor.
Two changes to the award structure were introduced in 2004. The awards became administered by Fantastic Queensland, a volunteer group that promotes Australian speculative fiction. A new division was added, Golden Aurealis, for both short stories and books, drawn from the winners of the other divisions.
There is also an associated Peter McNamara Conveners' Award for Excellence for "a particular achievement in speculative fiction or related areas in the relevant year, but may also take into account achievements over a number of years. This may also be for a non-fiction work, a collection or anthology, an art work, or for a body of work that brings credit and/or attention to the speculative fiction genre in that year". The award was originally known as the Convenors' Award for Excellence and was renamed in 2002 after Peter McNamara (d. 2004), the original award Convenor, shortly after he was diagnosed with an incurable disease. It is given out at the discretion of the Convenors.
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