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SNAFU at the Aurealis Awards

2/20/2017

1 Comment

 

​When I was working in Singapore, there was a phrase in Singlish that always stuck with me. You’d say someone was “blur” or “blur like sotong”. Sotong means squid in Malay and to say they were “blur” like a squid meant they had that same dull, glassy-eyed expression that you saw on those hapless molluscs in a fish market. If you were blur, then you were obtuse, oblivious to everything around you; you weren’t in on the joke or up to speed with current events.
 
Anyway, I’ve been so blur recently that I didn’t even realise that Non-Zero Sum had been nominated for an Aurealis Award, and only found out when I got tagged in a Facebook post saying it had made the shortlist!

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t’s an open secret that writers are their own worst critics. By and large we have no idea how stories are going to be received. Occasionally you get a good feeling about a story. Something about it just gives you an expectation that other people are going to like it just as much as you, but that feeling is rare. Here’s where I should say that I had just such a feeling about Non-Zero Sum, but the truth is I didn’t. I liked the central idea: that nuclear explosions rip open a gate between worlds and allow things to come through.  I liked the characters--a military HAZMAT team sent to a nuclear accident to gather data and then running into supernatural, monster weirdness--the action scenes were fun (imagine if HP Lovecraft had grown up playing Doom and Quake), but the story never jelled for me. I always felt I could have done more with it.
 
Shows what I know... Told you I was blur.
 
Non-Zero Sum probably won’t win. It’s up against some stiff competition, and this style of fast-paced action stories may not be to the judge’s taste. But what the hell… it’s shortlisted and I’m running with that and slapping a big “Finalist” sticker on this post anyway. 
 
Thanks to Geoff Brown, AJ Spedding and everyone at Cohesion Press. You guys are the best!

1 Comment
edu birdie.com link
3/13/2019 04:37:27 pm

I have been working as a host for at least twenty five years now. I have handled all kinds of events, from parties to large corporate events. If I were to pick one which I really love, it would probably be hosting the awards. Unlike other events, awarding events are a lot more livelier. People are on the thrill of knowing whether they have won or not, this makes the entire night a lot more interesting. I want to host another awards event soon.

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