My novel Anarya’s Secret didn’t win the Best Adult Novel category in the 2008 Sir Julius Vogel Awards. In a strong field, the winner was Russell Kirkpatrick’s Path of Revenge.
It would have been nice to win, but I was most impressed by the quality of the field, not just in the Best Adult Novel category but throughout the categories. It’s a very good sign that New Zealand speculative fiction writers are being so widely published.
The Awards were presented at Conjunction, the 2008 New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention, which was held at Easter in Wellington. I attended the Saturday of Conjunction as well as the awards ceremony on the Sunday evening. It was my first New Zealand SF convention for a while, and I was impressed with what I saw: attendance seemed to be good, and on the Saturday, I attended a particularly interesting panel on science fiction and fantasy appropriate for different age groups – or, in other words, what books are suitable at what ages to introduce children to science fiction and fantasy. “What can they read after Harry Potter” was one of the topics discussed.
I’ve now been nominated for a Sir Julius Vogel Award three times: I’ve been a runner-up twice, and on the other occasion, my book (in that case, my first short story collection, Extreme Weather Events) was the only book nominated in its category, and thus ineligible for an award. I guess I’ll just have to keep writing science fiction and fantasy until I win one – which might, of course, set me up for a very long career.
