The winners of the Sir Julius Vogel Awards for 2021, recognising works from the 2020 year have been presented at a ceremony held on August 7th.
Congratulations to all the winners.
Professional Categories |
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| Best Novel | |||
| The Stone Wētā | Octavia Cade | (Paper Road Press) Ebook Paperback |
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| Best Youth Novel | |||
| These Violent Delights | Chloe Gong | (Hachette NZ) Amazon Mighty Ape Whitcoulls |
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| Best Novella | |||
| No Man’s Land | A.J. Fitzwater | (Paper Road Press) Ebook Paperback |
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| Best Short Story | |||
| For Want of Human Parts | Casey Lucas | (Diabolical Plots) | |
| Short Story | Arachne’s Web | James Rowland | (Aurealis issue #132) |
| Best Collected Work | The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper | A.J. Fitzwater | (Queen of Swords Press) |
| Best Professional Artwork | Cover art for “No Man’s Land” by A.J. Fitzwater | Laya Rose | (Paper Road Press) |
| Best Professional Production/Publication | |||
| How New Zealand’s Best Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors got Shafted on a Global Stage | Casey Lucas | (The Spinoff) | |
Fan Categories |
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| Best Fan Artwork | |||
| Blue and Red (This is How You Lose the Time War) | Laya Rose | ||
| Best Fan Production/Publication | |||
| FIYAHCON Guest of Honour Speech | Cassie Hart | ||
| Best Fan Writing | Alone Together at the Edge of the World | Andi C. Buchanan | (CoNZealand Souvenir Book) |
Special Awards |
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| New Talent | |||
| A.J. Lancaster AJ Lancaster has been killing it with three of her four book series out. Amazing sales records. An audiobook contract. Stunning covers, even more stunning and complex beautiful plots. She’s been quietly working away and achieving amazing things. She also volunteers for the community, including in the publications team for CoNZealand last year producing the ConBook. |
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| Cassie Hart Cassie worked tirelessly to support inclusion of local and international SFFH writers at CoNZealand, including programming and fearlessly advocating for opportunities for Māori authors and being instrumental to driving the inclusion scholarship initiatives. She personally mentored several local writers at the convention and co-developed the internationally award-nominated CoNZealand Fringe event that opened with a showcase panel she chaired titled “What is Modern Aotearoa New Zealand Speculative Fiction”. Every time she spoke, she used the opportunity to lift up NZ genre writers, and in particular Māori genre writers. This culminated in her invitation to speak as Guest of Honour at the prestigious international FIYAHCon convention. For many in the international SFFH community, Cassie was the face and voice of the NZ SFFH genre writers in 2020 and she used that opportunity with grace and strength to lift up local and indigenous SFFH writers. Her work in 2020 built off the foundation of years of such generosity and dedication. _________________________________________In 2020 Cassie Hart worked tirelessly to champion inclusion. The most notable examples of this were in CoNZealand and extending into the CoNZealandFringe event, in which she took part in the CoNZealand Fringe initiative providing extra content to the convention, in recognition of how traditional Worldcon times (and locations) make participation from less-represented parts of the world impossible. This is helpful to fans all over the world, including Aotearoa specifically. It may even set a positive precedent for future Worldcons. Cassie is a strong voice for Māori speculative fiction writers and creatives, a staunch cheerleader for diversity of all kinds, and a credit to the community. _________________________________________ Cassie has put huge energy to promote New Zealand – and particularly Māori – SFF and its creators on a global stage. This includes her work on the ConZealand programme to ensure diverse representation, on the related diversity initiative to broaden attendance, on the ConZealand Fringe (both in organisation and in chairing a panel of NZ SFF writers which has received ~800 views to date), and as a GoH at the inaugural – and hugely popular FIYAHcon. Both publicly and behind the scenes Cassie has supported local writers in building connections that will likely serve all parties for years to come, and increased the visibility of local SFF around the world. Cassie’s work behind the scenes at CoNZealand and in front of the scenes at FIYAH con has been a tremendous leap forward for tangata whenua on the international stage as well as at home. Cassie worked hard to ensure there was outreach to Māori authors and inclusion of ta ao Māori in the programming at both cons and her Guest of Honour speech at FIYAH con is the first time I can ever remember seeing an indigenous author give a keynote speech at an event like that which wasn’t purely for indigenous speakers. Beyond simply her work to ensure Māori are included in the speculative scene in NZ, she is also a source of mentorship and encouragement to all new authors working in the speculative field in this country. She is approachable, free with advice, and boundless with her goodwill. I am honoured to have worked alongside her at events and have benefited immensely from the know-how she gives to others. She is a gem in the crown of our spec fic scene. |
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| Services to Fandom | |||
| CoNZealand Crew Putting on an event virtually is exhausting. There is so much infrastructure in place here in post-pandemic 2021 that the CoNZealand crew did not have. They were the first to host a virtual WorldCon, the first to host any kind of WorldCon in NZ, and they worked tirelessly to ensure that things went off with as minimal technological disruption as possible. From the volunteers that assisted with programming, closed-captioning, live streaming, and people-wrangling to the con committee who made the difficult decisions, everyone involved put blood, sweat, tears, time, and effort into this event and the fact that they were able to accomplish so much with so little and with the world in such a state is quite an accomplishment. |
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