The 2025 Australasian Shadows Awards judging is complete and the finalists have been chosen.
2025 FINALISTS
Poetry:
- Katya de Becerra – Anatomy of a Haunting
- L. E. Daniels – Speak
- Geneve Flynn – A Pocket of Soil
- Lee Murray – Charcoal Skies
Collected Work:
- Jeff Clulow – The Leper’s Garden
- Pamela Jeffs – This Dark Architect and Other Grim Tales
- Craig Stanton – Shadows of Razorhurst
- Pauline Yates – The Connections We Keep
Edited Work:
No shortlist, but a winner will be announced at the presentation.
Graphic Novels/Comics:
No award will be presented in this category in 2025.
Rocky Wood Award for Non-Fiction and Criticism:
- Monica Carroll – Folklore Beginnings for Horror Writers
- Claire Fitzpatrick – Frankenstein in Pop-Culture – Atomic Adaptations
- Stephen Herczeg – August Derleth and the Rise of the Cthulhu Mythos
- Lee Murray – Fox Girl: A Speculative Journey
- Louise Zedda-Sampson – The Horror of Australia’s Literary Censorship
Short Fiction:
- Geneve Flynn – If I am to Earn my Tether
- Emma Gertz – Wrong
- Martin Livings – Whispers
- Kirstyn McDermott – It Will Only Hurt If I Want It To
- Carol Ryles – The Shelter
- Kaaron Warren – Bitter Skin
Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction:
- Jeff Clulow – The Leper’s Garden
- T. R. Napper – The Hidden God
- A. G. Slatter – The Cold House
- Aaron Sterns – The Meatamorphosis
- Matt Tighe – Drowning in the Dark
Novel:
- Madeleine D’Este – Black Soil White Bread
- Dmetri Kakmi – The Woman in the Well
- Martin Livings – The Obituary
- Margaret McGovern – This Stays Between Us
- A. Rushby – Slashed Beauties
- A. G. Slatter – The Crimson Road
GUIDELINES
Full Awards entry rules can be found HERE.
Full entry list can be found HERE.
Up to three works of horror/dark fiction may be entered per author in each of the following categories:
- Short Fiction: works up to 7,500 words.
- Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction: works between 7,501 to 39,999 words (novelette or novella).
- Novel: works of at least 40,000 words.
- Collected Works: A collection of three (3) or more short stories by a single author. No minimum or maximum word count. May contain reprints and/or originals*.
- Edited Works: A collection of three (3) or more short stories by two (2) or more authors; edited by one or more editors. No minimum or maximum word count. Includes anthologies and individual magazine issues. Horror/dark-themed special issues of mixed-genre magazines are also eligible. May contain reprints and/or originals*.
- Graphic Novels and Comics: Can include a single issue, run of issues, single comic or complete graphic novel. Work must be written by an Australasian. Work will be judged as an overall medium, with an emphasis on the script or story elements. (Note: The Award for Graphic Novel category will only be awarded to the author).
- Rocky Wood Award for Non-Fiction and Criticism: A piece of non-fiction or work of criticism, including (but not limited to) a book, essay, article, collection of non-fiction works, or review. The work should be an author biography recognising work in the horror genre, criticism of one or more horror works, or be based on a topic that is in some way horror-themed, ie. hauntings, true crime killings.
- Poetry: no line limit.
* Reprint-only collections/edited publications are eligible in the year the work as a whole is first published. Subsequent editions (in any format) or the publication of a new edition by a different publisher are ineligible unless different stories are included.
