Norma K. Hemming
Norma Kathleen Hemming (September 1928 – 4 July 1960) was a British-Australian writer known for science fiction and romance novels. She is regarded as Australia’s first significant female science fiction writer. Writing as N. K. Hemming, she published about 20 science fiction stories in the 1950s and also wrote and performed plays at Australian science fiction conventions. Under the pen name Nerina Hilliard, she wrote eight romance novels for Mills & Boon.
Norma Hemming was born in Ilford, Essex, England. She trained as a secretary and moved to Sydney in October 1948 with her parents and younger brother. Her first science fiction story, “Loser Takes All,” appeared in Science Fantasy in 1951. Over the next eight years she published many more stories, including pieces in the Australian pulp Thrills Incorporated and in British magazines such as New Worlds, Nebula SF, and Science Fiction Adventures. She became involved in the Sydney science fiction community, joining the Sydney Futurian Society after Australia’s first science fiction convention in 1952 and contributing to and editing Vertical Horizons, a fanzine for female fans. She also wrote and performed in plays at national fan conventions from 1954 to 1958.
Later in the 1950s she turned to romance fiction, using the name Nerina Hilliard. Her first romance, The Time is Short, was published by Mills & Boon in 1958, with two more novels appearing in 1960 and five more published after her death.
Her stories often featured themes like Earth women forming relationships with alien men, children with extraordinary powers, Amazons in space, and planets ruled by matriarchies, told with a light, humorous tone.
By the late 1950s she was battling breast cancer, which spread to her bones and lymph nodes. She died in the Peter MacCallum Clinic in Melbourne on 4 July 1960, at age 31. A collection of her papers, including letters, is held in the Special Collections of the University of Western Australia Library.
Norma K. Hemming’s legacy is honored by the Norma K. Hemming Award, established by the Australian Science Fiction Foundation to recognize excellence by Australian writers who explore themes of race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability. The award was launched in September 2010 at the World Science Fiction Convention held in Melbourne. It was awarded annually until 2017, then became a biennial award. After a pause and a change of administrators, no award has been made since 2021, and the foundation’s site has since closed.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 19:13 (CET).