The Australian Science Fiction Foundation has given the A. Bertram Chandler Award for 2020 to Dr. Gillian Polack.

The A. Bertram Chandler Award, established in 1991, is Australia’s premier award for lifetime achievement in science fiction.

Polack discovered fandom in 1979 at a Melbourne University Science Fiction Association meeting. She has been a Canberra fan since 2002, worked on the Conflux committee, helped run the Conflux online minicon, and was a co-convenor of Flycon, the first international online sf convention. She spent four years judging the Aurealis awards. She was voted the Get Up and Over Fan Fund in 2014, attended the 72nd Worldcon in London, and published a trip report, Gillian’s Book of Lists.

Her novel Year of the Fruitcake was a 2020 Ditmar Award winner and Aurealis Award finalist. Her short fiction has been listed among the year’s best by Ellen Datlow and Gardner Dozois and is collected in Mountains of the Mind (2018),.

The award judges say, “Dr. Gillian Polack is a worthy winner of the A. Bertram Chandler award. She is a long-term fan, speculative fiction writer and organizer of wonderful fannish events. She has contributed so much to Australian fandom.”

[Via Locus Online.]