1) I'm delighted to see that Charlotte Nash's excellently dark deep space yarn 'Dellinger',* which saw publication in last year's Use Only As Directed anthology (which I co-edited with Edwina Harvey, and which, as I believe I may have mentioned once or twice, is published by Peggy Bright Books), has been shortlisted for an Aurealis Award in the Best Science Fiction Short Story category. (And she gets to double-dip, because she also has an unrelated story, 'The Ghost of Hephaestus', shortlisted in Best Fantasy Short Story.) Go Charlotte!
2) I'm also delighted, and more than a little gobsmacked, to discover that my collection Difficult Second Album: more stories about Xenobiology, Space Elevators, and Bats Out Of Hell has also been Aurealis Award-shortlisted, in the Best Collection category. (The competition comprises Lisa Hannett, Rosaleen Love, Ian McHugh, and no less than three Angela Slatters, which is pretty formidable company; I wish them all the best of luck.) And I'm also grateful for the editorial interventions of Edwina Harvey, who ensured that the collection pulled its textual socks up and washed behind its metaphorical ears and, in short, made sure that it was in the best possible shape to venture its way out into the wider world.
3) A couple of posts back, I mentioned that my distinctly-frivolous story 'Insecure Alternation'** was scheduled for publication in AntipodeanSF's gala 200th issue. It's been out for a few weeks now (and in fact I may shortly need to update that link, when the March release of AntipodeanSF is rolled out).
* In the interests of completeness, or circle-squaring, or something, it's perhaps pertinent to point people towards the blog interview I conducted with Charlotte last year, where she talks about the origins of 'Dellinger', her writing philosophy, and other good stuff.