by Elaine Walker
2000 was the final year that the George Turner appears to have been awarded. So a final look at what has happened to the nominees of this prize since then.
The nominations for that year were:
- Spook Squad – Keri Arthur
- Stormbringer – Kerry Greenwood
- The Adventures of Hal Spacejock – Simon Haynes
- Blue Sky and Silence – Michelle Marquardt
- Hashakana – Liz Martin
- Protection – Claire McKenna
- dot space dot – Simon Moore
- Fire in the Blood – Nicole Trewartha
of which the winner was Michelle Marquardt with Blue Sky and Silence which was published as Blue Silence in 2002. However Michelle seems to have concentrated on other things since then, including being an editor for The year’s best Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy (One to Four) with Bill Congreve and also writing essays in them. She also has had short fiction published, Lindi’s Angel (2002) and Crunch Time (2005)
Keri Arthur has continued writing and indeed her Spook Squad series of books has been published in 2004 and 2005 as Memory Zero, Generation 18 and Penumbra but before this had the Nikki and Michael series, the Damask Circle series and the Ripple Creek series. After that the Riley Jensen Guardian Series and Myth and Magic Series and the Dark Angels series. The most recent of which Darkness Devours has only just recently been released (June 2012) and the next one Darkness Hunts is due out in November 2012. As of this time this is a total of 26 published books since 2000. Primarily these are Paranormal Romance and Urban fantasy novels and some of them at least are set in Australia. Details are available at her own website and she has a wiki page as well. She is a full time writer living in Melbourne with her daughter and her books have been nominated several times for Best Contemporary Paranormal category of the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Awards and their Urban Fantasy Career Achievement Award.
Kerry Greenwood had been writing prior to being nominated for the George Turner prize and indeed had won an Aurealis award in 1996 in the Young Adult category (joint winner) for The Broken Wheel. As well as speculative fiction of the genre kind she also writes crime and historical novels, including some that are both crime and historical novels. She has also had wins and nominations for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award, the Davitt Award, the Ned Kelly Award, and shortlisted in the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards – Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Books in 2006.
Her most notable books at the moment are probably the Phryne Fisher historical mysteries which were made into a TV series by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 2011 and premiered on ABC1 in 2012 as Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. The Stormbringer books eventually ended up being published in 2005 and 2006 as The Rat and the Raven, Lightning Nest and Ravens Rising. Several other of her books are set in the same world at an earlier time, but are considered independent of the series. As far as I can tell she is still living and writing in Melbourne.
Simon Haynes has had his science fiction comedy Adventure of Hal Spacejock published by Fremantle Press and is now up to book 6 in the series due out in 2013. (The first is available as a free ebook on his website.) There are also two Hal Junior books and a short story collection. He has also written some essays on how to write a novel and how to get published. He is very enthusiastic in promoting his writing. He was born in the UK, grew up in Spain, and moved to Australia when he was 16. He currently resides in Perth where he makes his living as a writer and programmer.
Liz Martin does not appear to have had Hashakana published. She has a short story in the Cosmos Magazine called Echos in 2007. She is a citizen of both Australia and the USA, and at least in 2007 she was residing in Seattle. I cannot find any further information on this writer.
Claire McKenna also appears not to have ended up publishing her novel Protection but the internet speculative fiction database lists her as having written four short stories, What the Tide Brings (2001), Dark and Secret Places (2001), Stealing Alice (2002) and Warchalking (2004) with Paul Haines. Unreal City was published in Borderlands in 2007. In 2006 she made a low-low budget Sci Fi movie based on one of her own short stories, The Liminal.
Simon Moore does not appear to have had dot space dot published and there are too many writers called Simon Moore for me to work out if he has done anything else.
Nicole Trewartha was born in Victoria, Australia. It does not appear as if Fire in the Blood was ever published but she does have an ebook listed on amazon Cry of the Elemental (2011) as an ebook (appears to be self-published). She moved to Ireland in 2001 and manages to read and write as well as doing her day job.
So that’s three who have gone on to have (or continued on having) fairly solid novel writing careers, with the rest either continuing with short stories, branching into editing, or movie making, or the odd self-published item. And one lost into ‘too many Simon Moores’.
And that rounds up our look at the George Turner Prize nominees for the three years in which it was awarded.
If anyone has any further knowledge of any of these authors, feel free to comment or contact us.