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Friday, May 16, 2014

The New Aurealis Awards Judge!

C'est moi! :-)

Just got my confirmation. I will be one of those on the children's section panel. Now I will see what all the CBCA judges go through, except they have to do all types of children's books, while I'm only going to be reading and judging children's spec fic. The books are likely to be shorter than adult or even YA, so it won't take as long to read all the entries. We did get the gig on the understanding that we are willing to read ebooks. I agreed, with the rider that if something is available in print I'd prefer it, because it can can go on my library shelves afterwards. I probably won't be reviewing anything from the AAs here, because while it's not against the rules you have to be careful not to make authors or publishers think they're out of the running. For the same reason I won't be giving star ratings on Goodreads, though I rarely do that anyway.

But it will be nice to see what's out and see how close we get to the CBCA shortlist or the YABBAs.

Speaking of YABBA I have been told that my school has won a visit from a writer or artist sponsored by CAL and YABBA, under the YABBA Ambassador program. I don't know who it will be yet - that's part of the deal, they choose - but whoever it is will be made very welcome and given lunch and publicity and maybe even a small gift. It's very exciting!

For any Melbourne teachers or librarians reading this I hear they have just opened a second round of offers, up to 25 schools in total will win it. The only condition for entry is that you must be a member of YABBA. At $42 a year, even I can afford it! And there are a lot of incentives to join.

2 comments:

Anna Ciddor said...

OOh, what an honour and a privilege. I was asked to judge the CBCA Clayton Awards once. A lot of hard work but such fun, and I learnt so much from studying other people's writing in a judgemental way! Enjoy :-)

Sue Bursztynski said...

I had a book on the Clayton's shortlist once, my second - Potions To Pulsars:Women Doing Science. I have heard it described as the Golden Globes to the CBCA Oscars. The book did get a Notable.

Alas, the Aurealis Awards didn't want me this year! Maybe next year...