We are all done now for 2018!

And what a con it was. Thanks to our Guests of Honour, Rob Hood and Lee Murray (the best Emergency GOH ever!) and MC Rob Porteous (aka Irony Man), and thanks to all our presenters, workshop convenors and panel members. Thanks to Uncle Mingku for his warm and thought-provoking Welcome to Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country. Thanks also to our indefatigable Conflux Committee and con volunteers, without whom there would be no con. And a massive thank you to all our Conflux 14 attendees – it’s your presence and participation that makes Conflux such a wonderful, warm, welcoming place to be.

MC Rob Porteous, photo courtesy of Paula Boer

At the Opening Ceremony: GOHs Lee Murray and Rob Hood with Uncle Mingku; Photo courtesy of Paula Boer

Irony Man! (Irony: like silvery only prone to rust.) Photo courtesy of Paula Boer

A few announcements!

The winners of the CSFG-Conflux 14 Short Story Competition were:

1. C H Pearce, with Flipping the Fat on Middle Fifth
2. Andrew Old, with Sea Wolf
3. A G Cook, with Program Anne

The winners of the Conflux 14 Art Show were:

• The E G Harvey Prize for Australian Speculative Art: Keely Van Order for Isomorphic Transformations
• Best Professional 2-dimensional artwork: Shauna O’Meara for Lakeside
• Best Amateur 2-dimensional artwork: Alistair Ott for Sketches
• Best Amateur 3-dimensional artwork: Dion Perry for Mutual Respect
• Best Amateur digital artwork: Llewllyn Dobbs for Spirit of Nature

And, finally, we will see you all again next year, for Conflux 15:

What Lies Beneath…

With Guest of Honour Thoraiya Dyer

Author of the Titan’s Forest Series

The Creature of Frankenstein was born/artificially created in 1818… and is still going strong. This year is his 200th birthday and you are invited to a special party to celebrate it. Join monster-creators Professors Robert Hood and Kaaron Warren as they reveal their experiences with the Monster and his legacy of horrors, share your own thoughts and experiences, and salute the Terror. Hopefully the Creature will join us! As food and drink will be provided, an entrance fee is required. Book through the membership process or if already a member, emailing chair@conflux.org.au.

Dr Rob Porteous will be the MC for this year’s Conflux:
Rob is a Canberra writer and editor who dreams of being an Evil Overlord. Completely ambidextrous, he’s working on a sprawling epic fantasy novel and a neon-sharp cyberpunk SF novel simultaneously. In between times, he runs the Canberra Spec-fic Guild’s Novel Writing Master class and writes the odd short story.

Holy tales of epic deeds of epicness, Batman!

It’s time to once again break out your storytelling super-powers, because Conflux Inc is partnering with the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild to bring you the CSFG/Conflux 14 short story competition!

This year’s theme is THE UNCONVENTIONAL HERO!

We want your tales of 4000 words or under about tales of unconventional heroes, heroines and awesome people of non-specified gender, in any speculative fiction genre.

The competition is open to all Australian residents and members of either the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild or Conflux 14.

Entry is $5, unless you are a member of the CSFG or Conflux 14 or you are aged 16 or under, in which case it is free!

Prizes

First prize is $200 and a Conflux 15 membership! Second prize is $50 and a discounted Conflux 15 membership, and third prize is $25 and a discounted Conflux 15 membership.

Guidelines

Stories should be written in English, suitable for a general audience (ie, no gratuitous violence or erotica) and, of course, your own original, unpublished work.

Please submit them in the following format: RTF, double spaced, Times New Roman, Ariel or Courier font, with the story title in the top right header.

Make the first page of your document a cover sheet that includes your name, contact details and story title (we’ll remove this before we give it to the judges). YOUR NAME MUST NOT APPEAR ON ANY OF THE OTHER PAGES OF THE STORY.

Get it to us at csfgshortstorycomp@gmail.com before midnight on 31 July 2018.

Fees

Fees can be paid by direct deposit (BSB: 325185 Acct: 03421621 Acct name: Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild) or Paypal to canberra.specfic@gmail.com (For other options or any more information contact us directly at the csfgshortstorycomp@gmail.com address)

We are very pleased to announce that this year’s Conflux Conference Guest of Honour is Ambelin Kwaymullina. Dr Kwaymullina is an Indigenous Australian novelist, illustrator, and assistant professor of law at the University of Western Australia. She is of the Palyku people (Pilbara region of Western Australia). As well as beautifully illustrated picture books, she is the author of The Tribe series of novels: The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (Walker Books, Australia, 2012. Shortlisted for Aurealis Awards); The Disappearance of Ember Crow (Walker Books, Australia, 2013); and The Foretelling of Georgie Spider (Walker Books, Australia, 2015).  She has a new speculative fiction novel due out in September: Catching Teller Crow (Allen and Unwin).

We are so much looking forward to her visit in October this year.