Editors Jennifer Brozek and Amanda Pilar have won the 2009 Australian Horror Writers’ Association Award for Grants Pass!

Judge James Doig said: “Grants Pass is a post-apocalypse anthology with an additional linking theme involving Grants Pass, an Oregan town that has become a symbol of hope to survivors. News clippings and reports of plagues and other catastrophes effectively set the scene and the book is neatly top and tailed with journal entries by Kayley Allard, whose blog entry “When the end of the world comes, meet me in Grants Pass, Oregon“ informs all of the stories. The concept is a strong one-it allows authors full rein to explore ideas, settings and plots, but the connecting links are such that the overall effect is greater than sum of its parts. And some of the parts are very strong indeed; stand out stories for me were “Animal Husbandry” by Seanan McGuire, “Men of Faith” by Ivan Ewert, and “By the Sea” by Shannon Page. What could have been improved? There is quite a lot of collateral-dedications, forewords, story notes, biographies-much of which could have appeared at the back of the book or excised altogether.”

I am frankly stunned to be mentioned in the same breath as Seanan and Shannon, both of whom had stories which I thought were the strongest in the anthology. Seanan is now writing for The Edge of Propinquity with myself and Jennifer, and if you haven’t already read her book Rosemary and Rue, you really should.

All of this would be good enough news, but wait! Jennifer’s now an award-winning editor, and her newest anthology, Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, is now available through Apex Books — including brand-new stories by yours truly and Shannon Page.