Australian science fiction author Sean Williams writes, “I first met Kim Stanley Robinson in Hobart, 1995, when he was on his way to the South Pole. Stan suggested I look to the Australian Antarctic Division as a possible means of fulfilling my dream of visiting the great southern land. Over twenty years later, and thanks to the Australian Antarctic Division‘s Arts Fellowship program, that dream is about to come true.”
I’m incredibly honoured to have been awarded the 2016/17 Fellowship. Alumni include artists working in performance, documentaries, sound, and of course visual arts and writing. I’m the first speculative fiction writer since Anthony Eaton (2005/6) whose book Nightpeople won the 2005 Aurealis Award for best YA novel, and possibly the first South Australian writer ever to be awarded the Fellowship. The responsibility is incredible. The opportunity likewise. I cannot wait to get down there and get started.
The novel I’ll be researching is a counterfactual sequel to the War of the Worlds, which will pit Douglas Mawson against a wayward Martian. Its working title is LONE SOUL STANDING (a quote from Mawson’s diary about how being in the Antarctic is like being on the surface of Mars) but I quite like Charlie Stross’s suggestion too: MAWSON’S MARTIAN. Time and writing will tell which wins out.
Antarctica, Here I Come!
[Sean Williams]