I'm an Aurora Award winner!

Submitted by Douglas Smith on Sun, 2013/10/06 - 2:20pm

The winners of the 2013 Aurora Awards have just been announced at CanCon in Ottawa, and I am thrilled that my story "The Walker of the Shifting Borderland" won for Best Short Fiction! "The Walker..." first appeared in the wonderful Canadian speculative fiction magazine, On Spec, in their "Apocalypse" issue (cover at the right).

It's great to see so many of my friends on the winners list, too.The full list of winners is as follows:

  • Novel: The Silvered – Tanya Huff
  • YA Fiction: Under my Skin, The Wildlimgs – Charles de Lint
  • Short Fiction: The Walker of the Shifting Borderland – Douglas Smith
  • Poem / Song: A Sea Monster Tells His Story – David Clink
  • Graphic Novel: Weregeek – Alina Pete
  • Related Work: Hayden Trenholm – Blood and Water
  • Artist: Erik Mohr – Cover Art for ChiZine Publications
  • Fan Publication: Speculating Canada Blog – Derek Newman-Stille
  • Fan Filk: Kari Maaren – Body of Work
  • Fan Organizational: Randy McCharles – When Worlds Collide
  • Fan Related Work: Ron Friedman – Aurora Awards Voter Package

Unfortunately, I missed this convention for family reasons. Derek Newman-Stille kindly accepted on my behalf. My acceptance speech that I'd sent Derek went as follows:

Thank you for this unexpected honour! My apologies for not being here in person, but my youngest son's birthday falls on this weekend and it's one of those ending in a zero, so I didn't want to miss that. First, thanks to Cliff Samuels and everyone involved with the Auroras this year for all of their dedication and hard work in making these awards happen. A nod to my fellow nominees--it was an honour just being on the ballot with each of you (but I'm glad I won). Thanks to everyone who voted for the story, and special thanks to Diane Walton and the editorial board at On Spec for publishing "The Walker...,"and to Susan MacGregor for her great editing job. And finally, thanks to Derek for accepting on my behalf.

"The Walker..." is available as an ebook if anyone is interested in reading it. Thanks to all of you who voted for the story! This is my third Aurora win, and I couldn't have won any of those without your interest in my writing and your support.