A St. Albert writer has just won a coveted Prix Aurora Award presented by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.
Billie Milholland, along with Edmonton writers Eileen Bell, Roxanne Felix and London-based Ryan McFadden, each contributed to a four-part novella titled Women of the Apocalypse.
The entire anthology won the Best Work in English (Other) Award and Bell carried home an additional trophy for Best Short-Form Work in English. KeyCon announced the awards in Winnipeg last month.
This kind of double win was unheard of until Robert J. Sawyer did it in 1997 with Starplex and Peking Man, and again in 2000 with Flash Forward and Stream of Consciousness.
“It was unbelievable. That fact we were nominated was incredible. We’re the new kids on the block, and to be truthful we didn’t think we’d win. We didn’t think we had a chance next to the other gems that were nominated,” says Milholland.
In Women of the Apocalypse, the four headless horsemen (Pestilence, War, Famine and Death) ride once more. However, four angels seek four champions to save the world – brave fighting men.
All they have to do is drink a combination shooter of alcohol and divinity that will reinforce their convictions. But the four warriors never drink the shooters. Is it fate that four women drink the cocktail, and whether they want to or not, they become Earth’s champions.
Milholland’s story is titled Hungersnot, a German word meaning famine. “If Famine is to defeat North Americans, he has to be tricky. My notion was that although we are stuffed with all types of food, we are still starved.”
Milholland came to the attention of Edge Publishing two years ago when she entered a competition with a work titled Seven Deadly Sins. “I’d been casting for something new at that time.”
Prior to that Milholland had honed her writing skills writing articles and columns for Harrowsmith Magazine and the Western Producer. She had even dabbled in short fiction for CBC Radio.
The publishers at Edge were impressed with Seven Deadly Sins and invited her to write for the anthology. Interestingly enough, the four writers never talked until they’d completed their first draft. They wrote online and met at the anthology’s American launch at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, Calif. on the 2009 Halloween weekend.
The win gives the writers a certain cachet. “When we approach a publisher, the fact that we’ve won an Aurora is a selling point. It gives us a boost in presence, and when our book is tossed on the slush pile, that will guarantee us a read.”
