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The William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism or Review are a Special Category under the Ditmar Awards. "The Athelings", as they are known for short, are awarded for excellence in science fiction and speculative criticism, and were named for the pseudonym used by James Blish for his critical writing.
Winners are in bold.
(...must be filled in—see listed reference)
There were some changes in the Ditmar Award rules in 2000; the first attempted halted; after a second nomination process the 2000 Ditmars and the Athelings were awarded in 2001.
Sean Christopher McMullen is an Australian science fiction and fantasy author.
Damien Francis Broderick is an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. His science fiction novel The Dreaming Dragons (1980) introduced the trope of the generation time machine, his The Judas Mandala (1982) contains the first appearance of the term "virtual reality" in science fiction, and his 1997 popular science book The Spike was the first to investigate the technological singularity in detail.
The Ditmar Award is Australia's oldest and best-known science fiction, fantasy and horror award, presented annually since 1969, usually at the Australian "Natcon". The historical nominations and results of the Award follow.
Terence William (Terry) Dowling, is an Australian writer and journalist. He writes primarily speculative fiction though he considers himself an "imagier" – one who imagines, a term which liberates his writing from the constraints of specific genres. He has been called "among the best-loved local writers and most-awarded in and out of Australia, a writer who stubbornly hews his own path ."
Robert Maxwell Hood is an Australian writer and editor recognised as one of Australia's leading horror writers, although his work frequently crosses genre boundaries into science fiction, fantasy and crime.
Terror Australis: the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine (1988–1992) was Australia's first mass market horror magazine. It succeeded the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine (1984–87) edited by Barry Radburn and Stephen Studach. AH&FM was the first semi-professional magazine of its kind in Australia to pay authors. After working on the production crew of AH&FM, when Radburn eventually suspended publication, Leigh Blackmore took over the subscription base and with co-editors Chris G.C. Sequeira and Bryce J. Stevens founded Terror Australis. Kevin Dillon, a longtime Australian sf fan who had belonged to the Australian Futurians had the role of 'Special Consultant' for financial support and proofreading work on the magazine.
Kaaron Warren is an Australian author of horror, science fiction, and fantasy short stories and novels.
Terror Australis: The Best of Australian Horror was Australia's first original mass-market horror anthology for adults. It was edited by Leigh Blackmore..
Rick Kennett is an Australian writer of science fiction, horror and ghost stories. He is the most prolific and widely published genre author in Australia after Paul Collins, Terry Dowling and Greg Egan, with stories in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies in Australia, the US and the UK.
Catriona (Cat) Sparks is an Australian science fiction writer, editor and publisher.
Tansy Rayner Roberts is an Australian fantasy writer. Her short stories have been published in a variety of genre magazines, including Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and Aurealis. She also writes crime fiction as Livia Day.
Brimstone Press was an Australian independent publisher of dark fiction. Brimstone Press was established in 2004 by Shane Jiraiya Cummings and was based in Western Australia.
Jason Nahrung is an Australian horror author and journalist who lives in Melbourne with his partner Kirstyn McDermott. Nahrung has previously written for The Courier-Mail newspaper in Queensland, with a special interest in speculative fiction and horror-related topics. He was co-winner the 2005 William Atheling Jnr award for Criticism or Review. His first novel, The Darkness Within, was published in June 2007 by Hachette Livre in Australia. Nahrung has also published some horror and speculative fiction short stories.
Australia, unlike Europe, does not have a long history in the genre of science fiction. Nevil Shute's On the Beach, published in 1957, and filmed in 1959, was perhaps the first notable international success. Though not born in Australia, Shute spent his latter years there, and the book was set in Australia. It might have been worse had the imports of American pulp magazines not been restricted during World War II, forcing local writers into the field. Various compilation magazines began appearing in the 1960s and the field has continued to expand into some significance. Today Australia has a thriving SF/Fantasy genre with names recognised around the world. In 2013 a trilogy by Sydney-born Ben Peek was sold at auction to a UK publisher for a six-figure deal.
Bruce Gillespie is a prominent Australian science fiction fan best known for his long-running sf fanzine SF Commentary. Along with Carey Handfield and Rob Gerrand, he was a founding editor of Norstrilia Press, which published Greg Egan's first novel.
Bill Congreve is an Australian writer, editor and reviewer of speculative fiction. He has also published the work of Australian science fiction and horror writers under his MirrorDanse imprint.
Steven Paulsen is an Australian writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction whose work has been published in books, magazines, journals and newspapers around the world. He is the author of the best selling children's book, The Stray Cat, which has seen publication in several foreign language editions. His short story collection, Shadows on the Wall: Weird Tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy and the Supernatural), won the 2018 Australian Shadows Award for Best Collected Work, and his short stories have appeared in anthologies such as Dreaming Down-Under, Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror, Strange Fruit, Fantastic Worlds, The Cthulhu Cycle: Thirteen Tentacles of Terror, and Cthulhu Deep Down Under: Volume 3.
Chuck McKenzie is an Australian writer of speculative fiction.
Trent Jamieson is an Australian writer of speculative fiction.
Foz Meadows is an Australian fantasy novelist, blogger and poet.