‘Brush Strokes’ were the progress report/fanzines for Syncon 92. On pages 12-13 of the second of these, we find some evidence that certain conversations come around again in fandom:
The Australian SF (“Ditmar”) Awards
As mentioned in the first issue of Brushstrokes we want to try and encourage greater participation in the nomination and voting process for the “Ditmars”. One of the major complaints in the past has been that people have not had the opportunity to see the works available for nomination. To try and overcome this failing, at least to some extent, we hope to publish details of eligible novels, short fiction, fanzines etc. with each issue of Brushstrokes. We also plan to send these details to editors of other fanzines in the hope that they too might publish them. In this way it is hoped that as many people as possible will become aware of what is available to nominate giving them a better chance of seeing the works for themselves.
By maintaining a record of eligible works we will also be in a better position to decide the categories of awards to present. For example, if no novels are published in 1991 then there will be no point in having a Best Novel award.
In order to publish our lists we will be using a number of sources. However, if you would like to make certain that something is listed, and especially if you don’t think we would otherwise know about it, then please let us know. It would be helpful if you could provide as many details as possible i.e. publisher, author, date of publication, availability etc.
Nomination ballots will be sent out in November 1991 and will include a final listing of eligible works. Voting ballots will then be issued in February 1992.
We here at history.sf.org.au would like to draw readers’ attentions to the current list of Ditmar eligible works (2014). We encourage people to add to the list appropriately, and to use it as a source of inspiration when nominations for the 2014 Ditmars open sometime in 2015.