Many thanks to the Libertarian Futurist Society for making a transcript (and eventually recording) of our own Dave Freer’s speech available. He was introduced by Sarah Hoyt. Here’s the opening:

Firstly, I would like to apologise for my accent. I come from a polyglot of origins, or, as rural Australians would yell it, “Yer a bloody mongrel, yer drongo.”

This is a very accurate description, as it allows for hybrid vigour, and no pretentions of grandeur or delusions of good behaviour.  I do feel rather like the scruffy mongrel who has slipped the leash, run off with a slab of bacon and a string of sausages in his jaws and run, hotly pursued, into the midst of the hallowed halls of the Crufts dog show and jumped up onto the winner’s podium, panting and grinning, to enjoy his ill-gotten gains, while judges and former winners look on in horror.

But here I am, a Tasmanian, looking at the grand list of honourees and wondering ‘what the hell have I done to be among this lot of thoroughbreds?’

I take some comfort from the fact that this is the Prometheus Award, and Prometheus himself was a stroppy bastard who stole fire from the gods to give to mankind, rebelling thus against the autocracy of Olympus.

If you know anything about Australia, you’ll know Tasmania, or as it was called ‘Van Dieman’s Land’, was where the British transported the worst of irredeemable rebel prisoners, to live, and hopefully for the British Imperial authorities, to die, in de facto slavery.

If there’s one corner of Australia that ought to be a natural place for anti-authoritarian rebels, it’s there. I started my writing career about the maximum sentence ago – voluntarily, I admit. And “A rebel I came… and I am still the same.”

I gather I am the first Australian to be honoured with this award: Well, as this award really is about promoting liberty: I hope I can persuade you that liberty should not be confined, should not become insular… and people who have had it restricted it can become its fiercest partisans. We know the alternatives.”

Link to rest: https://www.lfs.org/blog/a-rebel-i-became-dave-freers-2023-best-novel-acceptance-speech-for-cloud-castles/#more-6175

Many thanks to those who logged in to watch the award ceremony, and thanks to the Libertarian Futurist Society for recognizing fun, encouraging stories!