About

Born on the South Island of New Zealand and now living on the North Island of Australia, Simon Petrie is a Canberra-based research scientist and writer of speculative fiction (SF, fantasy, and occasionally horror). Since 2007, his stories have appeared in magazines such as Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Aurealis, Borderlands, Kaleidotrope, Sybil’s Garage and Yog’s Notebook, webzines such as Redstone Science Fiction, AntipodeanSF, Ticon4 and Semaphore, and anthologies such as Masques (ed. Polack & Hopkins, CSFG), Destination: Future (ed. Adani & Reynolds, Hadley Rille Books), and Belong (ed. Farr, Ticonderoga Publications). His first collection of short fiction, Rare Unsigned Copy: tales of Rocketry, Ineptitude, and Giant Mutant Vegetables (Peggy Bright Books) published in March 2010, was shortlisted for a Sir Julius Vogel award in the Best Collection category. A novella double, Flight 404 / The Hunt for Red Leicester (Peggy Bright Books), was released in September 2012, with ‘Flight 404′ shortlisted for a Ditmar award and both novellas shortlisted for a Sir Julius Vogel award, all in the Best Novella / Novelette category, the following year.

Simon is an active member of the Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Co-operative, the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, and the SpecFicNZ core collective. For Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, he has acted as editor of issues 35 (May 2008), 40 (August 2009), 51 (June 2011) and 54 (June 2012). He co-edited Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear (Peggy Bright Books, 2012; shortlisted for a Ditmar award, in the Best Collected Work category in March 2013) with Edwina Harvey, and co-edited the upcoming CSFG anthology Next (April 2013) with Robert Porteous.  He has served on three different judging panels for the Aurealis Awards, in the SF Novel, Anthology & Collection, and Fantasy Short Story categories. In August 2010, he was awarded Best New Talent in the Sir Julius Vogel awards.