The preliminary ballot for the Australian SF (“Ditmar”) Awards for 2018 has been made available for comment and correction before becoming final.

The nominees are award-eligible works and persons first nominated by fans and members of the Australian NatCon which have been compiled into a ballot by a sub-committee elected at the previous National SF Convention business meeting.

The Ditmars will be presented at the 2018 Australian National SF Convention, (Swancon 43) in Perth, March 29 – April 2, 2018.

Best Novel

• Corpselight, Angela Slatter, Hachette Australia.
• Crossroads of Canopy, Thoraiya Dyer, Tor.
• How to Bee, Bren McDibble, Allen & Unwin.
• In the Dark Spaces, Cally Black, Hardie Grant Egmont.
• Lotus Blue, Cat Sparks, Skyhorse Publishing.

Best Novella or Novelette

• “Island Green”, Shauna O’Meara, in Ecopunk! Ticonderoga Publications.
• “Girl Reporter”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Girl Reporter, Book Smugglers Publishing.
• “Matters Arising from the Identification of the Body”, Simon Petrie, in Matters Arising from the Identification of the Body, Peggy Bright Books.
• “Monkey Business”, Janeen Webb, in Ecopunk!, Ticonderoga Publications.
• “My Sister’s Ghost”, Kate Forsyth and Kim Wilkins, in The Silver Well, Ticonderoga Publications.

Best Short Story

• “A Harem of Six Legs”, Edwina Harvey, in An Eclectic Collection of Stuff and Things, Peggy Bright Books.
• “Mr Mycelium”, Claire McKenna, in Ecopunk!, Ticonderoga Publications.
• “A Pearl Beyond Price”, Janeen Webb in Cthulhu Deep Down-Under Vol 1, IFWG Publishing Australia.
• “Prayers to Broken Stone”, Cat Sparks, in Kaleidotrope, Spring 2017.
• “Trivalent” by Rivqa Rafael, in Ecopunk!, Ticonderoga Publications.

Best Collected Work

• An Eclectic Collection of Stuff and Things by Edwina Harvey, Peggy Bright Books.
• Ecopunk!, Cat Sparks and Liz Grzyb, Ticonderoga Publications.
• The Silver Well, Kate Forsyth and Kim Wilkins, Ticonderoga Publications.
• Singing My Sister Down and other stories by Margo Lanagan, Allen & Unwin.

Best Artwork

• cover art, Lewis Morley, for Matters Arising from the Identification of the Body, Peggy Bright Books.
• The Grief Hole Illustrated: An Artist’s Sketchbook Companion to Kaaron Warren’s Supernatural Thriller, Keely Van Order, IFWG Publishing Australia.

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

• Earl Grey Editing (blog), Elizabeth Fitzgerald.
• Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts.
• No Award (blog), Liz Barr and Stephanie Lai.
• SF Commentary, edited by Bruce Gillespie.
• The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond.

Best Fan Writer

• Liz Barr, for writing at No Award.
• Leigh Edmonds, for writing in iOTA.
• Elizabeth Fitzgerald, for writing at Earl Grey Editing.
• Stephanie Lai, for writing at No Award.

Best Fan Artist

• Shauna O’Meara, for “How to Bee” (based on the novel by Bren MacDibble).

Best New Talent

• Clarie G. Coleman
• Stephanie Lai

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review

• Liz Barr, for Star Trek: Discovery reviews, in No Award.
• Russell Blackford, for Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination, Springer.
• Ambelin Kwaymullina, for “Reflecting on Indigenous Worlds, Indigenous Futurisms and Artificial Intelligence”, Twelfth Planet Press.
• Alexandra Pierce and Mimi Mondal, for Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, Twelfth Planet Press.
• Cat Sparks, for “Science fiction and climate fiction: contemporary literatures of purpose”, in Ecopunk! Speculative tales of radical futures, Ticonderoga Publications.

[Via Locus Online.]