Traditionally, the nominees for the Convenors’ Award for Excellence have not been announced. However, with the clarification of the rules made this year, we feel it is now appropriate to make these nominations public, mostly because they are all great things you may not otherwise have come across, so we’d like to make sure you know about them, but also to help people figure out what might be eligible in future.

A reminder what this award is for:

The Convenors’ Award for Excellence is awarded at the discretion of the convenors for a particular achievement in speculative fiction or related areas in the year that cannot otherwise be judged for the Aurealis Awards.

It can be for a work of non-fiction, artwork, film, television, electronic or multimedia work, or that which brings credit or attention to the speculative fiction genres.

The award was originally known as The Convenors’ Award for Excellence and was renamed in 2002 after Peter McNamara (d. 2004), publisher, editor and the original Aurealis Awards convenor, shortly after he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. In 2014, the award guidelines were revised and it was renamed to its original form, to avoid confusion with the Peter McNamara Achievement Award presented annually at the National Science Fiction Convention.

And the nominees are:

“It Grows!”, a film by Ryan Cauchi and Nick Stathopoulos

“Night Terrace”, a serial podcast story, produced by John Richards, Ben McKenzie, David Ashton, Petra Elliott and Lee Zachariah 

“The Australian Women Writers Challenge”, an online reviewing initiative

“Useless Questions”, a radio play by Laura Goodin, performed by fans at Conflux.