Going Chris Priest on the Aurealis Awards

[mondyboy]

Unless you’ve been away from the Internet for the last week, you’ll know that Christopher Priest went ballistic on this years Clarke Awards short list.

What you might have missed is that a week or so before the Clarke Awards list was released the short list for Australia’s premier genre award (also judged by a jury) the Aurealis was announced.

Comments

[benpayne]

I definitely think those kinds of robust discussion is what's missing from our scene. Not necessarily *quite* that robust, perhaps, but look, it shows people care.

The biggest danger to the Australian scene has always been apathy, more than criticism. How to combat that? The only way is to read things, and talk about them and treat them as if they are relevant.

I think the awards themselves are an important voice in helping to create that, but yes, we want the discussion to go further, ideally.

[mondyboy]

I love the word robust.

I'm personally trying to read more Aussie stuff this year. I'm also trying to sniff out any hype books from Australians that are due out in 2012 and worth reading. But yeah I know it's tough. The thing about Priest is that he'd read most of the novels on what is a much smaller ballot than the Aurealis.

But hey challenge is a good thing.

[mondyboy]

HA! I'm hoping to be better read this year. So you never know.

[mondyboy]

Absolutely.

[cassiphone]

Getting people to read is half the battle - and there's nothing more tiresome than a wave of 'these things I haven't read obviously don't deserve a place on the shortlist compared to this one thing I have (probably) read by a friend of mine.'

Yes please to people other than the Aurealis judges actually reading the works! That is one of the main aims of having an award in the first place, after all

[mondyboy]

The thing is I should have read your work and Margo's and Jo Anderton's and others last year. But I didn't. I'm going to try harder this year.

[cassiphone]

The moral of the story is totally READ MY BOOKS.

[mondyboy]

Very true.

[benpeek]

i wonder if i could have got chocolates?

look, the truth of it is that what i got was abuse. personal abuse, at that. when i met people for the first time, a number of them weren't real nice, either. that impacted a little on my fiction, to the point that it was actually stopping me from getting published, taking away opportunities, and so on and so forth. i like criticism and i think it's fun and i don't write it for authors, but for readers like me who think it is fun--but i write fiction because i love it, and after you've watched a lot of people just stop talking to you, or tell you various things about how unprofessional you are, you just have to make a call on it.

[mondyboy]

I think your LJ post sums it up. Artists are generally insecure about their art so bad reviews are like a stab to the chest with a machete. And when that criticism comes from another writer - someone whose meant to be in the Brotherhood, or whatever - then it's so much worse.

But all the writers have done is create an environment where the only review are positive and often come from their friends. At least that's how it feels here.

And personal abuse because of your taste is simple just wrong. Even if you're being a cock.

[benpeek]

it is pretty much an environment of deals for your mates, at least in some quarters. i tend to think it turns off people who are honestly interested in reading the work, because there's no sense of value in it all, after a while.

as for the personal abuse... it was what it was. you gotta have a sense of humour about all of this, really.