Kirstyn McDermott is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n writer of speculative fiction

Speculative fiction

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...

.

Biography

McDermott was born in Newcastle, New South Wales

Newcastle, New South Wales

The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...

, Australia on 31 October. She grew up in Woodberry, New South Wales

Woodberry, New South Wales

Woodberry is one of the eastern-most suburbs of the City of Maitland in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. Most of the population lives in residential subdivisions while almost 84% of the suburbs land is rural in nature....

 and attended the University of Newcastle

University of Newcastle, Australia

The University of Newcastle is an Australian public university that was established in 1965. The University's main and largest campus is located in Callaghan, a suburb of Newcastle in New South Wales...

 where she completed a Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

. In 1995 McDermott moved to Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

 where she currently lives with her husband Jason Nahrung

Jason Nahrung

Jason Nahrung is an Australian horror author and journalist who lives in Melbourne, Victoria with his partner Kirstyn McDermott. Nahrung has previously written for The Courier-Mail newspaper in Queensland, with a special interest in speculative fiction and horror-related topics. He was co-winner...

. McDermott is a member of the SuperNOVA writers group.

McDermott was first published in 1993 with the short story "I Am the Silent Voyeur" being featured in Daarke Worlde No. 4. Her 2003 short story "The Truth About Pug Roberts", featured in the anthology Southern Blood: New Australian Tales of the Supernatural

Southern Blood: New Australian Tales of the Supernatural

Southern Blood: New Australian Tales of the Supernatural is a 2003 speculative fiction anthology edited by Bill Congreve-Background:Southern Blood was first published in Australia in June 2003 by Sandglass Enterprises in trade paperback format...

, was nominated for the 2004 Ditmar Award

Ditmar Award

The Ditmar Award has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention to recognise achievement in Australian science fiction and science fiction fandom...

 for best short story. Her short story "Painlessness" won the 2008 Aurealis Award for best horror short story

Aurealis Award for best horror short story

The Aurealis Awards are presented annually by the Australia-based Chimaera Publications and SpecFaction NSW to published works in order to "recognise the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers"...

 and the 2009 Ditmar Award for best Australian novella or novelette. In 2010 her first novel, Madigan Mine, was published by Picador

Picador (imprint)

Picador is an imprint of Pan Macmillan in the United Kingdom and Australia and of Macmillan Publishing in the United States. Both companies are owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group....

 and won the 2010 Aurealis Award for best horror novel

Aurealis Award for best horror novel

The Aurealis Awards are presented annually by the Australia-based Chimaera Publications and SpecFaction NSW to published works in order to "recognise the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy, horror writers"...

 as well as being nominated for three other awards.

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Work	Category	Result
2001	Aurealis Award Aurealis Award Aurealis Award for Excellence in Speculative Fiction is an annual literary award for Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction. Only Australians are eligible for the award.-History:...	"Smile for Me"	Best horror short story Aurealis Award for best horror short story The Aurealis Awards are presented annually by the Australia-based Chimaera Publications and SpecFaction NSW to published works in order to "recognise the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers"...	Honourable mention
2004	Ditmar Award Ditmar Award The Ditmar Award has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention to recognise achievement in Australian science fiction and science fiction fandom...	"The Truth About Pug Roberts"	Best short story	Nomination
2007	Ditmar Award	"Cold"	Best short story	Nomination
2008	Aurealis Award	"Painlessness"	Best horror short story	Won
2009	Chronos Award	"Painlessness"	Best short fiction	Won
	Ditmar Award	Midnight Echo (with Ian Mond)	Best collected work	Nomination
		"Painlessness"	Best Australian novella or novelette	Won
2010	Aurealis Award	Madigan Mine	Best horror novel Aurealis Award for best horror novel The Aurealis Awards are presented annually by the Australia-based Chimaera Publications and SpecFaction NSW to published works in order to "recognise the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy, horror writers"...	Won
	Australian Shadows Award	Madigan Mine	Best long fiction	Nomination
		"She Said"	Best short fiction	Won
	Bram Stoker Award Bram Stoker Award The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...	"Monsters Among Us"	Best long fiction	Nomination
2011	Chronos Award	Madigan Mine	Best long fiction	Won
	Ditmar Award	Madigan Mine	Best novel	Nomination
		"She Said"	Best short story	Won

Short fiction

• "I Am the Silent Voyeur" (1993) in Daarke Worlde #4
• "Softly, Softly Tread the Night" (1993) in Opus
  Opus (magazine)
  Opus is a student newspaper published at the University of Newcastle, Australia by the Newcastle University Students' Association . Opus was founded in 1954 by then economics lecturer Cyril Renwick, at what was then the Newcastle University College of the University of New South Wales, in the...
  
  
• "The Publican’s Tale" (1994) in Opus
• "Rage" (1994) in Shadows of Life
• "And the Moon Yelps" (1994) in Bloodsongs #3 (ed. Chris A. Masters, Steve Proposch)
• "Running with the Gods" (1995) in Skintomb #6
• "Every Time She Spoke His Name" (1996) in Skintomb #7
• "Red" (1996) in Cosmopolitan
  Cosmopolitan (magazine)
  Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
  
  
• "Tears for Broken Toys" (1997) in Bloodsongs #8 (ed. Steve Proposch)
• "Smile for Me" (2001) in Redsine #6
• "Silver and Gold, My Love, Silver and Gold" (2002) in Tourniquet Heart
• "Louisa" (2002) in Redsine #7 (ed. Garry Nurrish)
• "RavensPerch: A Faerie Tale" (2003) in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
  Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
  Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine or ASIM is a fantasy and science fiction magazine and webzine published out of Glenn Innes, New South Wales, Australia. The publishers of ASIM describe it as "Australia's Pulpiest SF Magazine". The magazine is currently edited by Robbie Matthews and is...
  
  #5 (ed. Danuta Shaw)
• "The Truth About Pug Roberts" (2003) in Southern Blood (ed. Bill Congreve
  Bill Congreve
  -Biography:Congreve's first work was published in 1987 with his short story "Collector" which was featured in the Summer 1986/1987 edition of Aphelion Science Fiction Magazine. In 1992 Congreve's first edited anthology was released by Five Islands Press, featuring a short story and introduction by...
  
  )
• "Cold" (2006) in Shadowed Realms
  Shadowed Realms
  Shadowed Realms was a dark flash fiction online magazine produced by Australian independent publisher Brimstone Press and edited by Angela Challis. A number of stories published in Shadowed Realms have won, or been nominated for, several speculative fiction awards. -Publication history:The first...
  
  #9
• "Somewhere Else: Jane" (2006) in Mitch? #4
• "Shadow Puppet" (2007) in FlashSpec #2
• "Golden" (2007) in Island #110
• "Painlessness" (2008) in Greatest Uncommon Denominator #2 (ed. Kaolin Fire, Sue Miller
  Sue Miller
  Sue Miller is an American writer who has authored a number of best-selling novels. Her duties as a single mother left her with little time to write for many years, and as a result she did not publish her first novel until 1986, after spending almost a decade in various fellowships and teaching...
  
  , Julia Bernd, Debbie Moorhouse)
• "Feather" (2008) in Black Box
• "Indigo in Absentia" (2008) in Southerly
  Southerly (journal)
  Southerly is an Australian literary magazine, established in the 1930s. It is currently published in hardcopy and online three times a year, and carries fiction and poetry by established and new authors as well as reviews and critical essays...
  
  #68/3
• "Soon the Teeth" (2009) in Antipodean SF #128
• "She Said" (2010) in Scenes from the Second Storey (ed. Amanda Pillar, Pete Kempshall)
• "Monsters Among Us" (2010) in Macabre: A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears (ed. Angela Challis, Marty Young)
• "We All Fall Down" (2010) in Aurealis
  Aurealis
  Aurealis is a Australian speculative fiction magazine published by Chimaera Publications. The magazine was launched in September 1990 to provide a market for speculative fiction writers, with a particular emphasis on raising the profile of Australian authors.In 1995 the magazine instituted the...
  
  #44 (ed. Stuart Mayne)
• "Frostbitten" in More Scary Kisses