Conflux plays host to various writing and art contests, and this year’s winners include:
Art Contests
E G Harvey Award
THE E. G. HARVEY AWARD FOR AUSTRALIAN SF ART is an annual award sponsored by the Harvey Australian Foundation. This award is for the best original visual art work in show, produced by an Australian artist in the previous 12 months. Judging will be made from works exhibited at the Conflux 12 Art Show by a panel of non-participating artists. The medium for the work may be acrylic, oils, watercolour, pencil and/or ink, charcoal, mixed medium, sculpture, photography, animation and video-works.
This year’s E G Harvey Award winner, collecting a beautiful trophy and $500 prize, is Russell Kightley for “Quala’s Jungle”
Art Show – Professional
This year’s Art Show – Professional prize was won by Keely Van Order for “Grief Hole: Paradise Falls”
Art Show – Amateur
This year’s Best in Show – 2D – Amateur prize was won by Ian Nicholls for “Tears in the Rain”
This year’s Best in Show – 3D – Amateur prize was won by Alastair Ott for “Steampunk bracelet”
Writing Contests
Conflux/CSFG Short Story Contest
The Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (CSFG) sponsored this year’s short story writing contest, judged by Guest of Honour Alan Baxter and previous winner (on multiple occasions) Robert Porteous. Submissions were required to be up to 4000 words long, in any speculative genre, using the theme “Red Fire Monkey”.
The winners were:
- First place – Pia Van Ravestein, “The Repairers”
- Second place – David Versace, “The Nature of Monkey”
- Third place – Pamela Jeffs, “Tattoo”
Flash Fiction Slam
In the flash fiction slam, participants were given a random prompt and 15 minutes to write a short 100-200 word story, and recite it before a live studio audience (well, in the convention reception).
The winner, by popular applause, was Rik Lagarto.
Poetry Slam
The poetry contest, run on similar lines, was won this year by Tim Roberts, for his poem “They Know Where I Am” (reproduced below)
They know where I am
I hear them: above me,
behind me, weaving patterns
in the air –
I hear their steady, leathery flapping
but no cry or hoot, which scares me more
than the rustling as they perch
in nearby trees.
If I walk faster, then trip, I’ll be easy prey –
not that I’m a hard target now
when they can fly like that in the dark.
Cosplay Contests
A number of cosplay events were held over the weekend and prizes awarded for the best costumes:
Monkey Magic Cosplay
The winners were Rob Porteous, Baby Leon (an actual baby) and Anke Ziergiebel
Star Trek Cosplay
Alistair Ott, Maddy Piggott and a mystery third winner (whose identity the very tired judges forgot to record!)
Star Trek Trivia
Finally, boldly going into the prize rounds for the Star Trek Trivia contests were M. James Richards and Cathy!
That’s it for Conflux 12!
Congratulations to all our winners and we hope to see everyone back for Conflux 13: Grimm Tales!
Tickets for 2017 Conflux event are now available at a discounted price from Trybooking!
Riffing off the theme of Guest of Honour Ellen Datlow’s 2015 anthology, The Doll Collection, we would like you to try and creep us right out by creating something horrible for our Conflux 13 Scary Doll competition.
There is paid parking close by, with free parking available on Beltana Road in nearby Piallago if you don’t mind a 5 minute walk. It’s a 12 minute drive to the centre of Canberra.
She lives in New York and co-hosts the monthly Fantastic Fiction Reading Series at KGB Bar. More information can be found at www.datlow.com, on Facebook, and on twitter as @EllenDatlow.
