Aurealis Awards

Sunday:

Last night was the Aurealis Awards for Australian Speculative Fiction (Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror). I was one of the judges and it was in Canberra this year so of course I went. The kids had a sleep-over at a friend's house so we even got to go out to dinner first!

Actually I didn't like the dinner much, even though it was a fancy-ish place. The sauce on my chicken was quite nasty, and who doesn't have any chocolate on the dessert menu? Crazy! I like my own cooking best because I cook what I/we like, but of course it is nice not to have to cook sometimes. And it was right next door to the ceremony so it was convenient if not very nice.

The Award Ceremony was good, and not at all boring, amazingly enough. The various hosts and award-givers were all spec fiction writers or publishers so had great imaginations. The general theme was that they kept talking about the future of the Awards ceremony: in 50 years after the zombie apocalypse, in 100 years after the last remaining humans had moved to another planet, in 150 years when everyone left was a clone of the next speaker etc. Very entertaining. And I got to see quite a few "famous" people (ie published authors) and also made a contact with our biggest fantasy fiction publishing house which is awesome considering that is what I am writing at the moment and she gave me her contact details AFTER I told her that!

Someone I know fairly well didn't recognise me with my short hair and I didn't recognise someone else with her new short hair, so that was fun.

I saw some pictures of the ceremony today with me in them. Always a nasty shock.

Sleep isn't going so well, last night the mask shifted a bit and blew air into my eyes, leaving them very dry and gummy (and me without enough air). I think I need the fit adjusted, I'm seeing the sleep people again on Friday for a review. Still a work in progress.