Aurealis Awards 2025 shortlists announced

The 2025 finalists in the Aurealis Awards, which recognise “the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror writers”, have been announced.

Awards are presented across 15 categories:

Best Children’s Fiction

• Villain (Adrian Beck, Scholastic)
• Little Bones (Sandy Bigna, UQP)
• Moonboy (Anna Ciddor, A&U Children’s)
• Escape from Firestone Fortress (Rachel Jackson, Riveted Press)
• The Last Seed Keeper (Paul Russell, EK Books)
• When the Mountain Wakes (Matt Shanks, Affirm).

Best Young Adult Novel

• Blood Moon Bride (Demet Divaroren, A&U Children’s)
• Lady’s Knight (Amie Kaufman & Megan Spooner, A&U Children’s)
• Dark Sun Rising (AA Kinsela, Plainspeak Publishing)
• The Serpent Called Mercy (Roanne Lau, New Dawn)
• This Stays Between Us (Margot McGovern, Penguin)
• Unhallowed Halls (Lili Wilkinson, A&U Children’s).

Best Horror Novel

• Orpheus Nine (Chris Flynn, Hachette)
• The Farm (Jessica Mansour-Nahra, Hachette)
• This Stays Between Us (Margot McGovern, Penguin)
• Slashed Beauties (A Rushby, HQ Fiction)
• Nightmare Reef (Deborah Sheldon, Severed Press)
• The Crimson Road (AG Slatter, Titan).

Best Fantasy Novel  

• House of the Rain King (Will Greatwich, self-published)
• Honeyeater (Kathleen Jennings, Picador)
• Greenteeth (Molly O’Neill, Orbit)
• Slashed Beauties (A Rushby, HQ Fiction)
• Grave Empire (Richard Swan, Orbit)
• Upon a Starlit Tide (Kell Woods, Voyager).

Best Science Fiction Novel

• Letters to Our Robot Son (Cadance Bell, Ultimo)
• Arborescence (Rhett Davis, Hachette)
• Volatile Memory (Seth Haddon, Tor)
• Dark Sands (JS Harman, self-published)
• Wastelands (Samira Lloyd, Arianhrod Press)
• All We Have (Tony Shillitoe, Millswood).

Best Graphic Novel/Illustrated Work

• Bad Friend (Robin French, Feral Rainbow)
• The Photographer (Mark Rafidi & Paul O’Sullivan, Hawkeye)
• Strange Bedfellows (Ariel Slamet Ries, HarperCollins)
• Higher Ground (Tull Swannakit, New Frontier)
• SoXiety (Tamlyn Teow, Riveted Press).

Best Collection

• The Leper’s Garden and Other Contagions (Jeff Clulow, Third Eye Press)
• Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere (Alex Cothren, Pink Shorts)
• Songs of Shadow, Words of Woe (Matthew R Davis, JournalStone)
• This Dark Architect and Other Grim Tales (Pamela Jeffs, Four Ink Press)
• Drowning in the Dark and Other Stories (Matt Tighe, IFWG).

Best Anthology

• Never Say Die (ed Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild Publishing)
• AUSTRAL 2025 (ed Matt Richardson, Michaela Teschendorff & Ciar Fhearchair, Meridian Australis)
• Fission #5: An Anthology of Stories from the British Science Fiction Association (ed Gene Rowe & Eugen Bacon, BSFA)
• Midnight Echo 20 (ed Marty Young, AHWA).

Best Horror Novella

• The Nga’phandileh Whisperer (Eugen Bacon, Stars and Sabers)
• Sideshow Souls (JJ Carpenter, self-published)
• Parasitic Omens (Jessica A McMinn, self-published)
• Willow Close (Helena O’Connor, IFWG)
• “Walpurgis” (Ron Schroer, Strange Legacy 2025: Creature Feature, Thorncroft Legacy)
• The Cold House (AG Slatter, Titan Books).

Best Fantasy Novella

• Hol(l)o(w)metabolism (Lee Cope, Whimsy and Metaphor Enterprises)
• Cinder House (Freya Marske, Pan Macmillan)
• Parasitic Omens (Jessica A McMinn, self-published)
• Trickster Tales (Leanbh Pearson, Brigid’s Gate Press)
• “Crown Tourney” (Tansy Rayner Roberts, Crown Tourney: Ten Tales of Deadly Damsels, Cursed Castles and Edged Weapons, self-published).

Best Science Fiction Novella

• Quiet Like Fire (Cameron Cooper, Stories Rule Press)
• “Photo in the Chip” (Callum Lewis, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine #98)
• “The Hidden God” (TR Napper, Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2025)
• Homecoming (Thomas K Slee, Refraction Publishing)
• All My Guns are Trans and Gay and They’re Ruining My Fucking Life (Corey Jae White & Maddison Stoff, Patreon).

Best Young Adult Short Story

• “Ne’za’s Yearning” (Eugen Bacon, Omenana)
• “Mother Tree’s Idols” (Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga, Augur issue 8.2)
• “Anomalies of Prospero Base” (Jeanette O’Hagan, Rise of the Consortium, By the Light Books)
• “Crown Tourney” (Tansy Rayner Roberts, Crown Tourney: Ten Tales of Deadly Damsels, Cursed Castles and Edged Weapons, self-published)
• “This Ocean Was a City Once” (Spencer Rose, Conflux Inc.)
• “As Brittle as Granite” (Matt Tighe, Cast of Wonders, Escape Artists).

Best Horror Short Story

• “Catch and Consume” (Ella T Holmes, Aurealis #185)
• “The Bottom Feeders” (Fionn MacPherson, Lost Souls Issue 2)
• “It Will Only Hurt If I Want It To” (Kirstyn McDermott, Midnight Echo #20, AHWA)
• “The Shelter” (Carol Ryles, Midnight Echo #20, AHWA)
• “Bitter Skin” (Kaaron Warren, Night and Day Saga)
• “Me, Espresso” (Corey Jae White & Maddison Stoff, Patreon).

Best Fantasy Short Story

• “Dragon Drops” (Baden M Chant, Deadly Flames, Bayonet Books)
• “Dying Mountain” (Baden M Chant, Aurealis Magazine #177)
• “The Hidden” (Jeff Clulow, The Leper’s Garden and Other Contagions, Third Eye Press)
• “What We Sew” (Brendan Cottam, Memento Mori, Jacaranda)
• “Sparrow & Butler” (Nike Sulway, Fractured Reveries: A Storied Imaginarium Salon, Storied Imaginarium Books)
• “Jericho and the Cursed Forest” (Matt Tighe, Drowning in the Dark and Other Stories, IFWG).

Best Science Fiction Short Story

• “Gallows Humour” (Kobi Ashenden, Griffith Review 89: Here Be Monsters)
• “Phantom Loop” (SL Johnson, with Gio Clairval, Tales from the Crosstimbers, Crosstimbers Publications LLC)
• “Déjà Vécu” (TR Napper, AUSTRAL 2025, Meridian Australis)
• “Time Witch Airship Cruise” (Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine #99)
• “Full term” (Scott Steensma, Aurealis #177)
• “Do Motorcycle Centaurs Dream of Five Stars and a Tip?” (Corey Jae White & Maddison Stoff, Interzone, MYY Press).

The winners will be announced on 21 February during GenreCon in Brisbane. Nominations for the special Convenors’ Award for Excellence, to be announced on the same day, are listed on the Aurealis Awards website.

Category: Awards Local news