Judges

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.

Judges are volunteers and are drawn from the speculative fiction community; from diverse professions and backgrounds, and may include 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.

Being an Aurealis Awards judge involves reading entries in a category, which may comprise several dozen novels and/or more than a hundred short stories in the process of evaluating the year’s entries. Judges may keep their reading copies of entries.

It is vital that judges be able to work as part of a team and meet stringent deadlines. Most of the judges’ discussions are conducted via an online forum or email.

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 unless a panel of judges is unable to reach a consensus.

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.

When judging application numbers make it possible, we split categories across multiple judging panels, for example, one for novels and one for short stories in a particular genre. Categories with traditionally small entry figures may be combined.

All judges for the Aurealis Awards will accept works electronically and will each nominate their preferred electronic file format. We strongly encourage submission of files in epub and mobi formats, although print, or rtf, doc and pdf files may be accepted.

The winner of the Convenors’ Award for Excellence will be reached by a consensus of the convenors of each of the judging panels.

Aurealis Awards finalists and winners in each category are selected by our judges.

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2022 Judging Panels

Judging Coordinator: Tehani Croft, assisted by Joanne Anderton

Horror Novel
Georgina Banfield
JM Merryt
Glenn George
Celia Pearce
Nathan Phillips	Convenor
Horror Novella
Jake Corvus	Convenor
Anna Hepworth
Aimee Murphy
Donella Reed
Yunn-Yu (Christine) Sun
Horror Short Story
Caitlin Chisholm	Convenor
Charmaine Clancy
Roslyn Phillips
Marija Sijakovska
Christine Titheradhe
Anthologies / Collections	(two categories)
Susan Beasley
Emma Cutting
Mark Phillips
Cathie Tasker	Convenor
Illustrated Work / Graphic Novel
Eugen Bacon	Convenor
Sarah Custace
Christopher Marcatili
T R Napper
Lucas Palermo
Fantasy Short Story
Paula Boer	Convenor
Ben Dominish
Natalie Haigh
Cary Lenehan
Allister Smith
Sarah Swarbrick
Fantasy Novella
Olivia Carter
Deb Gates	Convenor
Raymond Hodgson
Elizabeth Robinson-Griffith
Rebecca Sutherland
Science Fiction Short Story
Dianne De Bellis	Convenor
Nick Hartland
Amy Laurens
Mark Lingane
Wen Moore
Darren Nash
Science Fiction Novella
Deborah Brown
Paul Cormack
Irene Davy
Alexandra Pierce	Convenor
Lynda Young
Fantasy Novel
Finn Barz
Elizabeth Fitzgerald	Convenor
Stephen Hipkiss
Heidi Kneale
Ruth Lawlor
Science Fiction Novel
Lorraine Cormack
Mark Fazackerley	Convenor
Marian Foster
Jan-Andrew Henderson
Paul Voermans
Children’s Fiction
Miffy Farquharson	Convenor
Ky Garvey
Emily Meredith
Bron Swasbrick
Young Adult Novel
Bethany Barrass
Jess Drake
Stephanie Gunn	Convenor
Martha Itzcovitz
Emilie Morscheck
Young Adult Short Story
Debbie Berger
Jess Gately	Convenor
Melanie Ifield
Samara Lo
Louise Nice