Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Vogel Awards: And the winners are....



Best Novel: Samiha's Song by Mary Victoria (a real sweetheart)

Best Youth Novel: Battle Of The Birds by Lee Murray (a lovely and astute lady with a daughter the same age as mine)

Best Novella / Novelette Steam Girl by Dylan Horrocks (I only met him once but he seemed a really nice guy)

Best Short Story: Frankie And The Netball Clone by Alicia Ponder (who?  Yeah I know - I was so shocked and pleased it took me an entire night to figure out how to sleep again.)

Best Collected Work: Tales For Canterbury by Cassie Hart and Anna Caro (A great book for a great cause)

Best Professional Artwork: Oracles Fire cover by Frank Victoria (Weta artist extraordinaire - and all round nice guy)

Best Dramatic Presentation: Almighty Johnsons by Producer: Simon Bennett and Writers: Rachal Lang and James Griffin.  (People, believe it or not  I have never met - probably because film people are less likely to go to book events :)

Anyway I was pretty happy to be in such esteemed company: and I was happy with a rather large tinge of sadness to see Ripley Patton win a special award for her work in creating SpecFic NZ (or who would ever know there were so many amazing Speculative Fiction writers in New Zealand).  The reason it's so sad is that due to personal circumstances she has moved away from New Zealand and back to her home country of America.  We will miss her dearly but her creation SpecFic NZ goes on.

A.J. Ponder

 A.J. Ponder's work is available through Rona Gallery, The Children's Bookshop, Arty Bees and all good New Zealand bookstores


(paid link)



4 comments:

  1. Congratulations! I have only read a little of your poetry, and had no idea you did the prose thing too.

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  2. Cheers, the poetry is just for fun - have had a bit of luck with the short stories lately - now all I have to do is write more...

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  3. Wonderful news. And great company to be in!

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  4. thank you Michelle, it's a fantastic community and I'm so grateful to SFFANZ for all the work they've done to build the award and the speculative fiction writing community.

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