The Aurealis Awards close to 2025 entries this Sunday, November 30. Check out the updated entries list and make sure you get all your eligible work entered before the deadline!
Don’t forget that the entry period is inclusive of ALL 2025 publications, including those forthcoming in December.
Take a look at our Rules and FAQ for eligibility and ENTER HERE.
February is fast approaching and with it, the 2025 Aurealis Awards event! It’s going to be a great night with all the ceremony the Aurealis Awards deserve and we’d love to see you there.
If you’d like to attend, you will need to book a “ceremony only” ticket through the GenreCon website – genrecon.com.au – when this ticketing option opens at the end of November!
While you’re there, check out the GenreCon program. We’d love to see you at GenreCon, which has an exciting line-up of speakers including past Aurealis winners.
Book through this link to get your $40 Aurealis discount.
We’re looking forward to seeing you for the night, or possibly the whole weekend.
And don’t forget, Aurealis Awards entries close on Sunday November 30!
Less than two weeks left to get ALL your 2025 entries in for the Aurealis Awards – INCLUDING those scheduled for December publication!
Aurealis Awards entries close on November 30, 2025 – this is by necessity a couple of weeks earlier than in past years to facilitate our exciting Awards Ceremony at GenreCon on the weekend of 20-22nd February!
It is ESSENTIAL that creators and publishers remember the deadline still includes all 2025 publications, including those scheduled for DECEMBER this year.
If you believe you have a story being published late in the year, get it entered! We can always cancel an entry if publication is delayed, but we will not be able to accept 2025 publications in next year’s Awards.
Five days left to access early entry fee pricing!
All works published January to September 2025 must be entered by 30 September to be eligible for the regular entry fee.
The fee increase applies to these works from October 1.
In an effort to ensure panels have sufficient time during the entry period to give due consideration to all entries, from 2025 the entry fee applicable to all long-form work (including novels, graphic novels, anthologies and collections) will be scaled.
Works published between January 1 2025 and September 30 2025 must be entered by September 30 2025 to avoid the entry fee increase applied from October 1 2025.
Works published in October, November and December will not be subject to the entry fee increase, but early entry is encouraged.
Essentially, works published January-September 2025 but not entered until October/November 2025 will incur the higher fee.
This is not intended as a punitive measure but is essential to maintain timelines for receipt and judging of entries, and is in line with measures taken by some other national awards such as the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year awards.
We are delighted to announce that the 2025 Aurealis Awards are now open for immediate entry.
The 2025 Aurealis Awards, Australia’s premier awards for speculative fiction, are for works created by an Australian citizen or permanent resident published for the first time between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2025.
We strongly encourage publishers and authors to enter all works published already this year by September 30, 2025, then subsequent publications as they are released. We have introduced a tiered entry fee structure to help encourage early entry, in order to allow our judges time to consider each entry carefully.
Entries for the Aurealis Awards main categories close on November 30, 2025. Please note this is inclusive of all work scheduled for publication in December.
Full guidelines and FAQ can be found on the Aurealis Awards website:
The Aurealis Awards judges welcome electronic entries in all categories, including novels, short stories, novellas, illustrated work / graphic novels, collections, anthologies, children’s and young adult fiction. The Aurealis Awards management team recognises the financial burden of entering multiple works in multiple categories to some authors, editors and publishers at independent small presses. We accept epub files, although PDF may be provided if no other format is available (particularly for graphic works). Print may also be supplied.
Finalists of all Award categories will be announced early in 2026 and winners announced at a ceremony to take place in the February For more information on the Awards or for the entry forms, visit the Aurealis Awards website at https://aurealisawards.org/.
For more information contact the judging coordinator Tehani Croft at aajudges@gmail.com.
We live in an ever-evolving world, and this year the Aurealis Awards have some changes occuring to help us stay abreast of things and able to continue to deliver Australia’s premier speculative fiction awards.
Firstly, we have new overlords! In 2025, the Aurealis Awards are heading back to Brisbane, under the auspices of the Queensland Writers Centre. We are delighted to be back in the sunshine state, and look forward to working with the QWC team to bring you the Awards for the next several years.
Secondly, as part of our Rules, we have a statement on the use of generative artificial intelligence.
The use of generative artificial intelligence tools during any part of the judging process is not permitted.
Works that have been created with the use of generative artificial intelligence are strictly forbidden from entry in the Aurealis Awards. This includes written and illustrative content.
In addition, as per the Australian Society of Authors’ statement on generative artificial intelligence, the Aurealis Awards agrees that all use of a creator’s work should be authorised, compensated and acknowledged, and that:
AI-generated products should be labelled as such. It is essential for educational, research and cultural institutions – as well as consumers – to be able to easily identify AI-generated works and AI developers and users must be required to declare when a work is wholly or partially AI-generated.
Finally, in an effort to ensure panels have sufficient time during the entry period to give due consideration to all entries, from 2025 the entry fee (applicable to all long-form work, including novels, graphic novels, anthologies and collections) will be scaled.
Works published between January 1 2025 and September 30 2025 must be entered by September 30 2025 to avoid the entry fee increase applied from October 1 2025. Works published in October, November and December will not be subject to the entry fee increase.
Essentially, works published January-September 2025 but not entered until October/November 2025 will incur the higher fee. This is not intended as a punitive measure but is essential to maintain timelines for receipt and judging of entries, and is in line with measures taken by some other national awards such as the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year awards.
Entries for the 2025 Aurealis Awards will open soon – keep an eye on our socials and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date!
Please read the following information carefully before submitting your application as we cannot make exceptions to the requirements.
We are seeking expressions of interest from Australian residents who would like to judge for the 2025 Aurealis Awards. Judges are volunteers and are drawn from the Australian speculative fiction community, from diverse professions and backgrounds, including academics, booksellers, librarians, published authors, publishing industry professionals, reviewers and enthusiasts. The only qualification necessary is a demonstrated knowledge of and interest in their chosen category.
It is vital that judges be able to work as part of a team and meet stringent deadlines, including timely recording of scores and comments for each entry (in a confidential shared file), and responding to panel messages and discussions. Most of the panel discussions are conducted via email, with some panels choosing to have a synchronous online meeting to make final decisions.
All judges must be willing and able to read entries in digital format (usually epub but occasionally PDF), which we accept in all categories. Print is still sometimes sent by entrants but we do not require it.
Panel sizes may vary among categories – and from year to year – depending on the perceived workload required and the availability of judges for a particular category. However, each panel will consist of at least three judges, one of which will be the panel convenor.
Being an Aurealis Awards judge involves reading entries for one panel (which may comprise more than one category). This may consist of several dozen novels and/or more than a hundred short stories / novellas in the process of evaluating the year’s entries. The reading load can become quite heavy at the end of the judging period although we endeavour to obtain works as soon as they are published. Judges may keep their reading copies of entries. Convenors of each panel are also required to participate in the judging of the Convenors’ Award for Excellence, which involves additional consumption of material.
The use of generative artificial intelligence tools during any part of the judging process is strictly forbidden.
Categories are:
Entries to the awards close November 30 2025, with all work published between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025 eligible for entry. Shortlists from each panel will be required by early in 2026 (firm dates will be advised), and prospective judges should be aware that this may be an intensive process.
All discussions are confidential between the judges in each panel and the judging coordinator and/or the Aurealis Awards management team, as required. The Aurealis Awards judging coordinator will have no input into these decisions except to mediate panel issues.
Judges from previous Aurealis Awards processes are welcome – indeed encouraged – to re-apply. But, in the interests of transparency and impartiality, no one may judge the same category for more than two consecutive years, and a break of two consecutive years is required before a judge can reapply to be a judge in that particular category again.
Please complete the form below by Sunday 29 June, 2025.
Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Aurealis Awards, presented today in an online ceremony. A recording of the ceremony will be available soon at our YouTube channel.
Thank you so much to everyone who joined us live, and particularly to our presenters and our host, the wonderful Garth Nix, for such an amazing show. We also take this opportunity to once again thank the judging panels for all their hard work making the difficult decisions of shortlists and the winning works, and all the creators and publishers who continue to make the Aurealis Awards Australia’s premier speculative fiction award each year.
BEST CHILDREN’S FICTION
The Apprentice Witnesser
Bren MacDibble
(Allen & Unwin)
BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL / ILLUSTRATED WORK
In Utero
Chris Gooch
(Top Shelf)
BEST YOUNG ADULT SHORT STORY
“In a League of Her Own”
Jeanette O’Hagan
(Stepping Sideways: Worlds of Steampunk & Dystopia, Rhiza Edge)
BEST HORROR SHORT STORY
“Flesh of My Flesh”
Ben Matthews
(Spawn 2: More Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies, IFWG Publishing)
BEST HORROR NOVELLA
Shattered
Pauline Yates
(Black Hare Press)
BEST FANTASY SHORT STORY
“Market of Loss”
Matt Tighe
(Aurealis #176, Chimaera Publications)
BEST FANTASY NOVELLA
“Another Tide”
Will Greatwich
(Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Firkin Press)
BEST SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY
“The Combat Pilot’s Dictionary”
Arden Baker
(Aurealis #167, Chimaera Publications)
BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVELLA
Ghost of the Neon God
T R Napper
(Titan Books)
BEST COLLECTION
The Heart of the Labyrinth and Other Stories
D K Mok
(self-published)
BEST ANTHOLOGY
Far-Flung
Samuel Maguire (Ed.)
(Tiny Owl Workshop)
BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
Anomaly
Emma Lord
(Affirm Press)
BEST HORROR NOVEL
Carve Your Soul to Pieces
Ben Pienaar
(self-published)
BEST FANTASY NOVEL
Thoroughly Disenchanted
Alexandra Almond
(HarperCollins Publishers)
BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL
Temporal Boom
J M Voss
(Shawline Publishing Group)
SARA DOUGLASS BOOK SERIES AWARD
The Radiant Emperor
She Who Became the Sun / He Who Drowned the World
Shelley Parker-Chan
(Mantle)
CONVENORS’ AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE
Speculative Insight: Year 1
Alexandra Pierce (Ed.)
This year’s Aurealis Awards ceremony will take place online at 4:00pm (AEST) TODAY, Sunday 4 May, 2025.
If you would like to be in the room where it happens, we encourage finalists, friends, family and fans to join the fun in the Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84588666020?pwd=elK4ItyTKm4SiaWCP20szbQOK5SkN5.1
Meeting ID: 845 8866 6020
Passcode: 362065
You can also watch live at our YouTube channel or via Facebook.
The ceremony will be recorded. Can’t wait to see you there!
Aurealis Awards 