Ditmar Awards
| Ditmar Award | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Excellence in science fiction, fantasy, and horror |
| Country | Australia |
| Presented by | Australian National Science Fiction Convention |
| First awarded | 1969 |
The Ditmar Award (formally the Australian SF ("Ditmar") Award; formerly the "Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award") has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention (the "Natcon") to recognise achievement in Australian science fiction (including fantasy and horror) and science fiction fandom. The award is similar to the Hugo Award but on a national rather than international scale.
They are named for Martin James Ditmar "Dick" Jenssen, an Australian fan and artist, who financially supported the awards at their inception.
The current rules for the award (which had for many years been specified only in the minimalist "Jack Herman constitution") were developed in 2000 and 2001 as a result of controversy resulting from the withdrawal of the works of several prominent writers from eligibility, and the rules are subject to revision by the "Business Meeting" of the Natcon.
Award-eligible works and persons are first nominated by "natural persons active in fandom, or from full or supporting members of the national convention of the year of the award". Nominations are compiled into a ballot (currently by a sub-committee composed primarily of standing committee members elected at the National SF Convention business meeting) which is distributed to members of the convention, and the previous year's convention, for voting, which may continue into the period of the convention ("at-Con voting") at the discretion of the committee.
In 2000 the awards were cancelled and re-run, resulting in two sets of nominations that year.
The second set of nominations for 2000 included Greg Egan's Teranesia as a finalist for the Ditmar Award for Best Novel despite Egan having attempted to decline nomination of his work. It was determined that an author could refuse an award, but not a nomination. Accordingly, Egan's novel remained on the ballot, and was permitted to win the award, which he then declined. (Egan had earlier attempted to withdraw all his works "into the indefinite future" from consideration for the Ditmar Awards in order to give himself greater freedom to state his views on the awards process.)
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