Sir Julius Vogel Award Winners – 2021

Professional Categories

(Hachette NZ)
Amazon
Mighty Ape
Whitcoulls

(Splashdown Books)
Amazon

(Walker Books Australia)
Purchase

(Paper Road Press)
Ebook
Paperback

(Paper Road Press)
Ebook
Paperback

(Steam) 
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1238710/Wonderland_Nights_White_Rabbits_Diary/

Fan Categories

Special Awards

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.

Kate Haley is a fresh new voice writing witty and entertaining fantasy that tackles big themes with wry humour. Her debut series, The War of the North Saga, follows eight university students trying to save the world, and learning some important lessons along the way. 

The seven-book series took almost 10 years to write, and was published between May and November in 2020, despite all the challenges of Covid-19. The novels address issues like love and loss; family and forgiveness; learning to love yourself and be happy for others; and the trauma and tragedy of war. Of particular note is the deft way in which Kate deals with LGBTQ elements within her story. All these themes are treated with respect and authenticity.

Kate's writing is strongly character-driven, with a good balance of fast-paced action, and more nuanced character development. One of the highlights of the series is just how far the characters have come by the end. It's a story that only gets stronger with re-reading, and for all their flaws the characters quickly become friends.

The opening line of Transference is ‘you may have heard of me.’ Following this swaggering proclamation from author Brandon Keaton, the reader is then dropped into the center of a plot that unravels like the knots in a once-broken heart now repairing itself in full view for everyone to see. The writer’s voice resonates and reverberates, inciting blissful riots with pinpoint accuracy into our own veiled future via the protagonist’s forlorn search both for answers and his lost loved ones. If penning a diatribe against blind conformity and gross intolerance wasn’t enough either, Keaton’s debut novel manages to simultaneously bend a knee to hope itself and morphs beautifully into (among other things) a love letter to his own departed family.

Brandon currently resides in Auckland on a crime-addled street, which hurts his heart but at times forces him to make believe he were a certain comic-book character who dresses like a bat, which is okay really because fiction can be fun. He previously lived in Wellington for many years and although he does not (and never did) own a bookstore, he often imagines that he did, and he can even smell the pages on a good day. It is his privilege to support the SPCA—and various other compassionate New Zealand organizations—in an attempt to cover a multitude of mortal misdeeds.

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.
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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.
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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.
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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. 

Since her previous award in 2017, Lee Murray has undertaken a raft of new and innovative projects to increase awareness, develop talent, and provide support for our science fiction and fantasy community. Representing more than two thousand hours of volunteer time, this exceptional service deserves recognition once more.

Arguably speculative fiction’s most active mentor, Lee works with writers through organisations such as AHWA, HWA, SpecFicNZ, NZSA, Tauranga Writers, Young NZ Writers, and the Whitireia and IML graduate programmes, and in 2020 was awarded HWA international Mentor of the Year, evidence of her commitment to developing speculative fiction creatives.

A co-founder and facilitator of Young New Zealand Writers, Lee has spent over a decade developing youth writers and readers of speculative fiction through competitions, anthologies, and annual workshops. In 2018, she instigated and implemented the Young New Zealand Writers Youth Laureate Award programme, a national competition to develop our youngest novelists, which resulted in the 2019 release of novels by New Zealand secondary students, Xiaole Zhan and Emma Uren, both of whom Lee mentored throughout the editing and publication process. Other initiatives co-created under the Young New Zealand Writer umbrella (with Piper Mejia and Jean Gilbert) include a virtual convention for youth, offered during 2020 COVID-19 restrictions.

Since 2017, as well as four anthologies by New Zealand youth, Lee donated her time and expertise to edit and promote anthologies and magazines which offer publication opportunities for New Zealand and other genre writers, including charity anthology Tricksters Treats #3, and professional publications Breach 11 & 12, Te Korero Ahi Ka, and Midnight Echo #15.

Despite saying ‘never again’ she was programme director of yet another national convention, GeyserCon, in 2019, and she is a current committee member of upcoming OZHorrorCoNZ.

Lee has promoted New Zealand speculative writers and their works as a speaker-presenter at national (12) and international (10) conferences, via dozens of podcasts and interviews, and regularly recommends her colleagues for festivals and other opportunities. She advocated for New Zealand science fiction, fantasy, and horror creatives, serving on the working groups for the Coalition for New Zealand Books, an industry-wide coalition created in 2019 to promote New Zealand books and authors. She has served on literary juries for five international and national awards, and for the past two years, Lee has facilitated Tauranga Writers’ professional development programme of monthly presentations for readers and writers, another way in which she develops our creative community.

In 2018, Lee contacted the HWA StokerCon convention committee offering a panel discussion on writing from anxiety and depression. This panel, convened and moderated by Lee, opened a wider conversation, both nationally and internationally, about creativity, well-being, and genre, promoted through essays, articles, online initiatives, and panel presentations.

In 2019, recognising the lack of national support for New Zealand science fiction and fantasy writers, Lee joined with the Wright Family Foundation to offer the Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction Writers to allow a writer freedom to write. The residency, which opened in 2019-2020 and is now in its second year, is administered by SpecFicNZ and includes mentorship support for the winning writer. The first residency offered solely for speculative writers, this initiative has been embraced by the New Zealand science fiction and fantasy community.

Finally, as one of the country’s most recognised writers (a three-time Bram Stoker Award®-nominee and two-time Australian Shadows Award-winner), Lee’s recent work has raised the visibility of New Zealand speculative writers and their writing abroad. An Honorary Fellow of the New Zealand Society of Authors and the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellow for 2021, her fiction has appeared alongside work by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, and Seanan McGuire, among others, and she is the first New Zealander to appear in the iconic magazine, Weird Tales, making her a wonderful representative for her country and our genre.

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.