In Australia, vampires are a protected class. Twenty-two towns are picked to siphon vampires, aka ‘redheads’, out of capital and regional cities. When polled, most Australians agree with this strategy. But most Australians don’t live in a ‘designated area’. Don’t have to step over drowsing redheads during the day. Or live in terror of marauding redheads during the night.
Mark Murphy is a nightshift worker in the designated area of Oleg’s Creek. His house is now worth nothing, and he can’t afford to leave. He’s heard rumours of The Refusal. Desperate, will he risk a grab at freedom?
Written by award-winning author Deborah Sheldon, Redhead Town is a dark tale of government overreach, societal breakdown, and one man’s love for his wife and son.
The Robert N Stephenson AHWA Short Story & Flash Fiction Competition has been run for another year. Once again we’ve had a stellar number of entries and the judges had a hell of a time trying to pick winners. I think there might even have been a fistfight at one point… wait, no, I’m being told that’s not actually true. Regardless, we truly appreciate the efforts of the writers who submitted their amazing work – you made the job of our judges genuinely hard.
Thanks also go to those judges – David Stevens, Pete Kempshall, Marty Young, Bernie Rutkay, Ronnie Smart, and Claire Fitzpatrick – who have done a great job under trying circumstances. This competition couldn’t go ahead without the awesome writers and these wonderful judges. And of course, massive thanks to our blood-soaked competition wrangler, the incomparable Anthony Ferguson. Apparently he’s the one who broke up the fistfight… oh, right, I’m being told that’s not true either.
So, without further ado, let’s celebrate the winners. They are:
Short story
Winner – “Test of Death” by Michael Botur
Huge congratulations, Michael.
And the judges give their Honourable Mention to “The Crossing” by Jeff Clulow. Congrats, Jeff!
Flash fiction
Winner – “Animal Parade” by Dani Ringrose
Huge congratulations to you too, Dani!
And the judges couldn’t split up the two deserving of an Honourable Mention, so they included them both: “Eggs” by P.S. Cottier and “Oily Man” by Sumitra Shankar
Big congrats to you two as well.
The two winners – “Test of Death” by Michael Botur and “Animal Parade” by Dani Ringrose – will receive a shiny winner’s plaque and paid publication in Midnight Echo 17, which is due for publication around the middle of 2022.
Here are our judges comments about the winners:
“Test of Death” – Original, dark and weird. Loved the characters and the whole concept. An entertaining blend of the grotesque, the humorous, and the crazed. A natural progression of insanity that somehow couldn’t be resisted.
“Animal Parade” – Visceral, demented, gritty, bizarre. I can hear the birds, smell the smoke from the fires and the antiseptic on the operating table.
Again, massive congratulations to the winners and HMs, and huge thanks to everyone who entered, our judges, and Anthony Ferguson for managing the whole thing. Horror is healthy!
RiLL publishing has released a new anthology featuring a variety of short stories, including an Italian translation of last year’s AHWA Short Story Competition winner “The Best Medicine” by Pauline Yates. You can read the English version in Midnight Echo 16, which should be out by the end of this month.
The entries have been entered, the judges have read and judged. Great deliberations were made to decide who from Australasia had made the greatest contributions to dark fiction in the plague year of 2020. And now, decisions!
Firstly, enormous thanks to the judging panels for their tireless hard work in volunteering to judge. It’s a big task and every single one of them performed admirably. On behalf of the AHWA and all the entrants, thank you!
Congratulations to everyone shortlisted for this year’s Awards. A truly wonderful array of subject and author on display here. Horror is, indeed, very healthy.
The winners will be announced in an online Awards Ceremony on Friday June 11th, starting at 8.30pm AEST via the official AHWA Facebook page. Winners will also be announced simultaneously on Twitter (follow @AustHorror). Hopefully next year we’ll get to have an in-person awards ceremony again.
The 2020 Australian Shadows Awards finalists are:
POETRY
Deadway by KS Nikakis (Journey: Seeking the Sacred, Spirit and Soul in the Australian Wilderness, SOV Media)
This Soundless Murk by Hester J Rook (The Future Fire)
The King of Eyes by PS Cottier (Monstrous, Interactive Press)
Mouthing Off by PS Cottier (Monstrous, Interactive Press)
The Tongueless Dead by Leigh Blackmore (Spectral Realms 13)
NON-FICTION
Exploration of Menstruation in Horror and Dark Fiction by Tabatha Wood
Queer Vampires in Modern Cinema by Tabatha Wood
Cthulu in California by Emmet O’Cuana
What Makes Good Horror by Tim Hawken
Phantasmagoria and the Earliest Forms of Horror Storytelling by Maria Lewis
Sandalwood and Jade: The Weird and Fantastic Verse of Lin Carter by Leigh Blackmore
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Hellblazer: Rise and Fall, by Tom Taylor & Darick Robertson (DC Comics)
DCeased: Unkillables, by Tom Taylor & Karl Mostert (DC Comics)
The Mycelium Complex, by Daniel Reed
Redback Armageddon, by Nathan Grixti (Self-published)
Undad Volume Three, by: Katie Walsh-Smith, Miranda Richardson, Big Tim Stiles, Ryan Lindsay, Shane W Smith / Illustrators: Mitchell Collins, Simon Robins (Self-published)
EDITED WORKS
Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, (ed. Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn, Omnium Gatherum)
Hadithi & the State of Black Speculative Fiction (ed. Eugen Bacon and Milton Davis, Luna Press Publishing)
Midnight Echo issue 15, (ed. Lee Murray, AHWA)
Black Dogs, Black Tales – Where the Dogs Don’t Die, (ed. Tabatha Wood and Cassie Hart, Things in the Well)
Trickster’s Treats 4 – Coming, Buried or Not! (ed. Louise Zedda-Sampson and Geneve Flynn, Things in The Well)
COLLECTED WORKS
The Heart is a Mirror for Sinners by Angela Slatter (PS Publishing)
Behind the Midnight Blinds by Marty Young (Things in the Well)
Red New Day by Angela Slatter (Brain Jar Press)
Bleak Precision by Greg Chapman (Self-published)
Grotesque by Lee Murray (Things in the Well)
SHORT FICTION
“Vision Thing” by Matthew R Davis (Black Dogs, Black Tales ed. Tabatha Wood & Cassie Hart, Things in the Well)
“Let Shadows Slip Through” by Kali Napier (New Gothic Review 2, pub. Ian McMahon)
“Brumation” by Anthony Ferguson (Midnight Echo Issue 15, ed. Lee Murray, AHWA)
“The Bone Fairy” by Martin Livings (Midnight Echo Issue 15, ed. Lee Murray, AHWA)
“Hideous Armature” by Joanne Anderton (Midnight Echo Issue 15, ed. Lee Murray, AHWA)
“Needles” by Kali Napier (The Dark #62, pub. Sean Wallace)
LONG FICTION
“New Wine” by Angela Slatter (Cursed, Titan Books)
“By Touch and By Glance” by Lisa L Hannett (Songs for Dark Seasons, Ticonderoga Publications)
The Attic Tragedy by Joseph Ashley-Smith (Meerkat Press)
“Barralang, pop. 63” by Deborah Sheldon (Dimension6 #19, Coeur De Lion Publishing)
“Kua Hinga Te Kauri” by Dan Rabarts (Outback Horrors Down Under, ed Steve Dillon, Things in the Well Press)
NOVEL
The Crying Forest by Venero Armanno (IFWG Publishing, Australia)
Sinister Reads 
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