Ditmars And Chronii.

My first awards night, at least the first one where I was nominated. And it's a real thrill to hear your name called out as part of the shortlist.

I told Jo Anderton and Alan Baxter I was hoping for a three-way tie. At least that's what I told them. I didn't really mean it. Jo deservedly won the Ditmar for Best New Talent. Elsewhere Paul Haines won the Chronos for Best Short Story with his amazing story, The Past Is A Bridge Best Left Burnt.

OK, so I would have loved either one of those little trophies, but the truth is Jo and Paul both deserved them for their work, and no-one can begrudge either of them. I've been writing for only about two and a half years, so simply to be nominated was a thrill and a validation.

Congratulations to all other winners, and look out for me in the future.

It's A Vibe.

Sunday morning, and it's latte and breakfast on Lygon Street. It's been a very, very long time since I've been down here this early, perhaps 25 years or more. A very different vibe to the evenings. Most of the customers are seated inside, but I'm out under the umbrellas. Me and one other customer - a guy who wouldn't be out of place on the set of The Sopranos.

Lygon Street is, after all, Little Italy.

Continuum is rocking along nicely. The panels have been great, but as any regular attendee knows, most of the best stuff happens elsewhere. Usually in the bar.

Had a great time last night, getting to know some new people and catching up with familiar faces. It's an absolute thrill when someone approaches you and introduces themself because they read your story, or your blog, or saw you on a panel or heard your name. I know I've introduced myself to a few people over the past few days for those very reasons.

And there's a vibe. A really cool, exciting vibe. The one thing I keep getting, from panels and conversations is this.

These are exciting times for Australian speculative fiction. The golden age of the small press. And we have some exciting writers emerging, some great projects happening and fun times ahead.

And remember, whatever happens on Con, usually ends up on the internet within minutes.

Vale: Bob Welch.

There are reports that Bob Welch has been found dead.

When I was a teenager, I used to stay over at a friend's house some Friday nights. We'd stay up real late, listening to albums and making toast. He was a huge Fleetwood Mac fan, and so I became a fan also.

Most of the Fleetwood Mac albums we listened to were from their pre Stevie and Lindsey days. As such I grew to love Kiln House, Mystery To Me, Heroes Are Hard To Find and Penguin. In fact, Jewel Eyed Judy was probably the first songs I ever learned on guitar. Bob Welch was the guitarist on those albums. He left before they hit it big in the U.S.

Afterwards he had a hit single with Ebony Eyes. Not exactly my cup of tea, but decent enough pop. Since then? I have no idea what he's been up to.

But I thank him for his contributions to those four great albums.

Vale: Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury has left us at the age of 91, and I've just realised how long it's been since I read any of his work.

I loved Fahrenheit 451, enjoyed I Sing The Body Electric, and struggled through The Martian Chronicles. I'm sure I've read more, but I can only recall those at the moment. I don't remember much about Chronicles - except that I had a hard time of it. My excuse is I was young. I do recall Kenny Everett making a joke that I found very funny as a teenage boy. Captain Kremmen once described someone as being "so low he could kick a Martian in the chronicles."

So I'll add that to my 'to read' stack and give it another shot now that I'm older.

There's no denying Bradbury's influence in the genre. R.I.P. Ray.

I've Been Snapshotted.

Yes, as an English teacher I know that's not the correct word,  but it seems to be the term a number of other participants have used when their interview has gone live as part of Snapshot 2012.

I was privileged to have been invited to participate, and to be interviewed by Tehani Wessely of FableCroft. (The editor of the terrific anthology, Epilogue)

You can find my interview here.

But don't forget to check out all the interviews, hosted on the following sites. They truly are fantastic.

http://thebooknut.wordpress.com/tag/2012snapshot/
http://kathrynlinge.livejournal.com/tag/2012snapshot/
http://helenm.posterous.com/tag/2012snapshot
http://bookonaut.blogspot.com.au/search/label/2012Snapshot
http://www.davidmcdonaldspage.com/tag/2012snapshot/
tansyrr.com/tansywp/tag/2012snapshot/
www.champagneandsocks.com/tag/2012snapshot/
http://randomalex.net/tag/2012snapshot/
http://jasonnahrung.com/tag/2012snapshot/
http://mondyboy.com/?tag=2012snapshot

Happy To Be Rejected.

Can you get excited about a rejection? I did. It was a personal rejection from one of the 'big-three' pro markets, direct from the editor-in-chief.

I've had rejections from this market before - the standard form rejections, but this time it had a few comments about the writing and the request to see more of my writing.  Of course this doesn't mean my work will sell there anytime soon, but it does mean that for the first time my story made it past the readers. And there was enough there for the Grand Poobah to comment on before rejecting it. I see that as a victory.

On top of that I sold another story. It's a story I love, a story that had a few 'almost but not quites' from markets I want to break into. A quick rejig and it was off again to another market. And I still have two stories on hold elsewhere - and yes, (fingers crossed) I have hopes for at least one of those to be picked up.

My contributor copy of Epilogue arrived this week, and it's beautiful. It's shiny and new and I love it. My preciousssss. I've just turned the final page, and I must say it's a fantastic read. Congrats to my co-contributors. You can't really go too far wrong with a TOC that has the following names alongside my own: Thoraiya Dyer, Lyn Battersby, Joanne Anderton, Dirk Flinthart, Stephanie Gunn, Kaia Landelius, Dave Luckett, David McDonald, Jason Nahrung, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Elizabeth Tan. As Molly used to say, do yourself a favour and all that.

I'm also thrilled to have received a 5 star review for my Epilogue story, Fireflies.

Fireflies - Steve Cameron - Five stars.

Beautiful and emotive. A lovely journey that was set up well, and followed through wonderfully. I would love to see more in this world.

Yay!

Snapshot 2012 is well underway, and I was interviewed for that a week or so ago. I'll post a link here when my interview appears. In the meantime checkout the previous post and get reading. Fascinating viewpoints from Australia's SpecFic community.

And I bought my own domain name. Did you notice stevecameron.com.au? And then there's Continuum 8 next weekend. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Does it get a whole lot better than this?

Snapshot 2012.

Every few years, a series of short interviews with members of the Australian SpecFic community is conducted and published online. The purpose is to get a 'snapshot' of the state of Australian SpecFic. Ben Peek started it all, way back in 2005 when he interviewed 43 people in a week. By 2007 the number of participants had almost doubled. The Snapshot was once again undertaken in 2010.

It's time for Snapshot 2012, and I feel completely honoured to have been interviewed.

Between 1st and 7th of June, a team of bloggers will daily be posting interviews with the participants of Snapshot 2012 across the following links:

http://thebooknut.wordpress.com/tag/2012snapshot/

http://kathrynlinge.livejournal.com/tag/2012snapshot/

http://helenm.posterous.com/tag/2012snapshot

http://bookonaut.blogspot.com.au/search/label/2012Snapshot

http://www.davidmcdonaldspage.com/tag/2012snapshot/

tansyrr.com/tansywp/tag/2012snapshot/

www.champagneandsocks.com/tag/2012snapshot/

http://randomalex.net/tag/2012snapshot/

http://jasonnahrung.com/tag/2012snapshot/

http://mondyboy.com/?tag=2012snapshot

This past year we lost two of our leading lights. Snapshot 2012 commences with tributes to Paul Haines and Sara Douglass.