2018 Norma K Hemming Award Finalists

The Norma K Hemming Award, presented under the auspices of the Australian Science Fiction Foundation (ASFF), announced the 2018 shortlists on April 29.

The 2018 shortlists cover works published in 2016-2017. Designed to recognise excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, sexuality, class or disability in a published speculative fiction work, the jury of the Norma K Hemming Award considered 130 entries published in 2016 and 2017 across the long and short form categories, comprised of short fiction, novellas, novels, edited anthologies, collections, graphic novels and stage plays.

The finalists for the Short Fiction (stories up to 17,500 words) are:

  • “Induction”, Thoraiya Dyer (Bridging Infinity, Solaris)
  • “The Rock in the Water”, Thoraiya Dyer (People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy!, Fantasy Magazine)
  • “Braid”, Kirstyn McDermott (Review of Australian Fiction Volume 24, Issue 1)
  • “Coral Bones”, Foz Meadows (Monstrous Little Voices, Abaddon Books)
  • “Tea Party”, Lauren E Mitchell (Defying Doomsday, Twelfth Planet Press)
  • “Memories of Fish”, Shauna O’Meara (Interzone 270, TTA Press)
  • “Two Somebodies Go Hunting”, Rivqa Rafael, (Defying Doomsday, Twelfth Planet Press)
  • “Did We Break the End of the World”, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Defying Doomsday, Twelfth Planet Press)

The finalists for the Long Work category are:

  • The Barrier, Shankari Chandran, Pan Macmillan Australia
  • Terra Nullius, Claire G Coleman, Hachette
  • Crossroads of Canopy, Thoraiya Dyer, Tor Books
  • Defying Doomsday, Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench (Eds.), Twelfth Planet Press
  • An Uncertain Grace, Krissy Kneen, Text Publishing
  • Portable Curiosities, Julie Koh, University of Queensland Press
  • How to Bee, Bren MacDibble, Allen & Unwin
  • An Accident of Stars, Foz Meadows, Angry Robot Books
  • The Grief Hole, Kaaron Warren, IFWG Publishing Australia

The winners of the 2018 Norma K Hemming Award will be announced at a ceremony taking place on June 8 at Continuum in Melbourne, with citations and a monetary prize being presented.