Category: NZ Made

The Sir Julius Vogel awards

Up until last year, I’m a bit sad to admit, I knew very little about the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, which recognise excellence and achievement by New Zealanders in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. 

As a newbie writer of speculative fiction (the umbrella term for all these genres) this isn’t super surprising, but as a reader it’s a shame because there have been some amazingly talented nominees and winners. You can find out more about the awards here:

Sir Julius Vogel Award Nominations for 2020 calendar year are now being accepted

Sci-fi and girl power

The awards are named after Sir Julius Vogel, former journo and 8th prime minister of New Zealand, who, in 1889 wrote what is now widely regarded to be New Zealand’s first sci-fi novel.

Anno Domini 2000, or, Women’s Destiny pictured a New Zealand in the year 2000 where most positions of authority were held by women – a pretty radial idea for the time. By the time we hit 2000 our PM, governor general, attorney general and chief justice were all women, so he was clearly onto something!

You can nominate Ghost Bus!

The cool thing about the Sir Julius Vogel Awards (or SJVs as the cool kids call them) is that they are fan-based, so you can decide who gets nominated – and if you take part in the National Science Fiction Convention this year, you can vote for them too.

The exciting thing about this year’s awards (for me at least!) is that Ghost Bus is eligible for nomination. Despite 2020 being, well, 2020, there was some amazing stuff published and I’m super proud to be able to contribute to that in my own way. So even making it as far as being a nominee would be really exciting for me and my ghosties.

So here’s where you come in:

If you enjoyed Ghost Bus, you can nominate it for an SJV for Best Collected Work or, if there was a particular story that tickled you, you can nominate that for Best Short Story. The nomination form is below:

SJV nominations – 2021

And the info you need is:

Title of work: Ghost Bus – Tales from Wellington’s Dark Side (or the title of a story you like. Or both. You can nominate as many as you like!)
Author/artist: Anna Kirtlan
Category: Best Collected Work or Best Short Story
Publisher: Anna Kirtlan
Contact: annakirtlan@gmail.com

Best fan art

The other great thing about the SJVs is that the categories cover all the things that make speculative fiction what it is – services to fandom, zines, cover art and fan art. Which means Shaun Garea’s amazing Ghost Bus fan art is eligible for nomination too. I have shared on here in via my social media, but just in case you missed it, check these beauties out!

I think these are absolutely amazing. If you think so too, please nominate them. I certainly will be! The deets you need are:

Title of work: Oriental Bay Piranhas fan art or The Ministry for Public Art fan art (or both!)
Author/Artist: Shaun Garea
Category: Best fan artwork
Publisher: Estrata productions
Contact info: shaungarea@hotmail.com
Other information: Fan art for Ghost Bus – Tales from Wellington’s Dark Side by Anna Kirtlan. Can be found at seamunchkin.com and estrataproductions.com

The award

Finally I’ll leave you with a couple of pics of the award itself because I think it’s just glorious. I hope you’ve enjoyed your little history lesson! Your homework is to think back to the New Zealand created speculative fiction that you used to distract yourself last year. If you loved it then show its creators some love by nominating them for all the things.