About ten years ago I ran a series of national mentoring workshops (EnVision) for aspiring speculative fiction writers. (Four published authors read a pod of 5 -6 writers’ books before the workshop, wrote up a report, then mentored them at the workshop while they rewrote. We found the aspiring writers came on in leaps and bounds under this one-on-one intensive development. EnVision was a Fantastic Queensland initiative, meaning I was on the management committee and put my hand up to run it).
One of the attendees was Rick Kennett. Not that Rick wasn’t already a brilliant writer of many years experience with a long list of publications behind him. Rick had a love of writing and the thought of hiding away somewhere for a week with a fellow writer who would read his book and give him feedback while he did rewrites was too good to refuse. (Frankly, I’d love to run away to write with feedback from a simpatico fellow writer). I’d heard of Rick of course but is a bit of a quiet achiever, living on the edge of the spec fic social scene here in Australia. So it was a joy to read his book and we’ve kept in touch ever since.
Now Rick is on the short list for not one but two Parsec Awards! The winners will be announced at Dragon Con. What are the Parsec Awards, I hear you say?
The Parsec Awards were established in 2006 to celebrate Speculative Fiction Podcasting. ‘Podcast shows are nominated by fans, and finalists are chosen by a yearly steering committee. Those finalists are then voted on by an independent panel of judges from outside of podcasting. Awards are given in several categories ranging from content to audio quality.’
Here are the two podcasts.
Now Cydonia by Rick Kennett (from Cast of Wonders)
“The Road To Utopia Plain” by Rick Kennett (The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine)
Congratulations to Rick and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed!
