While I was talking about DC and Vertigo comics in Bristol, much excitement was happening in Sydney where the annual Aurealis Awards were being handed out. The full results are available here (PDF), but I want to highlight three particular winners.

The Science Fiction Novel category was won by Kim Westwood for The Courier’s New Bicycle, while the YA Short Fiction category was won by “The Nation of the Night” by Sue Isle from her collection, Nightsiders. Both of these books feature positive and sympathetic portrayals of trans people as the central characters in the story. This makes me very happy indeed. Thank you, Australia. And thank you Kim and Sue for writing such great stories.

Congratulations are also due to my pals Alex, Alisa & Tansy at Galactic Suburbia who have done so much to promote interesting writing about gender. They won the Peter McNamara Convenors’ Award, which is given to people who have done something spectacular for the SpecFic community that doesn’t otherwise qualify for an award.