British Fantasy Awards 2009 - The Long-list

I recently joined the British Fantasy Society and as a fully paid-up member I am now eligible to vote in the society's distinguished awards. The long-list is extremely long this year, so long in fact, that the BFS have produced a downloadable PDF of all the nominees which can be found at the BFS website by going here: http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/

I am very pleased to see Allyson Bird's first collection Bull Running for Girls (which I raved about a few blog entries ago) receive not only a recommendation for Best Collection, but her story 'The Caul Bearer' has also been recommended in the Best Short Fiction category. I sincerely hope she does well in both categories and goes on to make it onto the shortlists. This won't be possible, of course, without lots of votes. Well, I know where I will be casting mine, but if you are a member and haven't yet made up your mind, then I would recommend taking a peek at Ally's work. You won't be disappointed. You can purchase the papaerback edition of Bull Running for Girls at the all-new Screaming Dreams website (http://www.screamingdreams.com/) at the special reduced rate of £6.99 plus free P&P. You will also find 'The Caul Bearer' available for free download there. Good luck, Ally, and happy reading everybody.

Great also to see that Screaming Dreams has been nominated in the PS Best Small Publishing Award and Steve Upham's excellent ezine Estronomicon is nominated in the Best Magazine category. As expected there is strong competition in all categories and it will be fascinating to see who makes it to the final shortlsists. Exciting, too, to be able to play a small part in choosing them.

Now, where are those voting forms...?

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