{"id":24164,"date":"2014-04-07T06:30:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T18:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=24164"},"modified":"2014-04-06T18:49:41","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T06:49:41","slug":"sir-julius-vogel-awards-2014-i-am-shortlisted-for-services-to-nz-sff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/04\/07\/sir-julius-vogel-awards-2014-i-am-shortlisted-for-services-to-nz-sff\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2014: I Am ShortListed For Services To (NZ) SFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As you will have gathered from last week’s O Frabjous Day<\/a> and Finishing The Book — The Power Of Retreat<\/a> (on the Supernatural Underground)<\/a> posts, being ‘out of the world’ (i.e. on retreat) is a big part of how I have managed to finish Daughter Of Blood<\/em><\/strong>, The Wall Of Night Book Three. <\/strong><\/p>\n

A case of priorities, but because of that I have not yet shared a very important piece of information that came through in the past few weeks: I have been nominated for the 2014 Sir Julius Vogel Award <\/a>for “Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.<\/strong>“<\/strong><\/p>\n

The citation—as per the advice notice\u00a0 I received—read as follows:<\/p>\n

“Helen has reached out to make sure that Australasian writers are seen by the rest of the world. She has used her blog and her space in SF Signal and her presence at events to inform the world and has done it with grace and good humour. Unlike many writers, she doesn\u2019t just focus on new work or known authors, but gives space to writers who otherwise would not be seen and for work that is beginning to go unnoticed. This is just one of the ways in which she supports SF, fantasy and horror. She has done this despite being affected by the Christchurch earthquakes. It has made a big difference to a number of people in the field, particularly in this time of publishing uncertainty.”<\/em><\/p>\n

To tell you the truth, dear blog readers, I blushed to read this—but I was also very pleased. I personally feel that there can be no greater accolade than to receive a nomination of this kind from those in the community of writers and fandom. So thank you, to those who nominated me for the award: I am glad that you have seen what I do as making a positive difference and being “part of the solution.”<\/p>\n

Regardless of the outcome of the final vote, this shortlisting will always be a tremendous thrill, not least because—although naturally I “get in behind” (to use Kiwi parlance) my own work and always will—I have also always subscribed to the philosophy of Prince Peter Kropotkin<\/a>, in his book Mutual Aid<\/em><\/strong>, that as human beings we advance at least as much via cooperation and collaboration as\u00a0 competition; or, to quote from the Bob Dylan song Forever Young<\/em> (nope, vampyres don’t feature ;-)), to the hope that:<\/p>\n

“May you always do for others<\/em>
\n And let others do for you.”<\/em><\/p>\n

So I am glad that others feel I am managing to ‘walk the walk’ of those values.<\/p>\n

The other shortlisted nominee for the award is the publisher, Harper Collins New Zealand, with the following citation:<\/p>\n

“I nominate the publishers HarperCollins NZ for its services to science fiction, fantasy and horror in New Zealand.<\/em><\/p>\n

HarperCollins has supported the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand since 2009 by making available books for review and through its own publicity for the Sir Julius Vogel awards.<\/em><\/p>\n

HarperCollins NZ has acted as the conduit to enable the international publication of books celebrating and detailing the development of films made in New Zealand by Weta Workshop and Weta Digital, and the films of Sir Peter Jackson.<\/em><\/p>\n

HarperCollins NZ has also been a strong supporter of New Zealand authors, publishing the likes of David Hair, Russell Kirkpatrick and Mary Victoria (to name but a few).”<\/em><\/p>\n

The awards will be announced at a ceremony in Auckland on (I believe) the evening of Saturday 26 April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you will have gathered from last week’s O Frabjous Day and Finishing The Book — The Power Of Retreat (on the Supernatural Underground) posts, being ‘out of the world’ (i.e. on retreat) is a big part of how I have managed to finish Daughter Of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three. A case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24164"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24970,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24164\/revisions\/24970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}