Welcome to L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 38. Over thirty-eight years ago, L. Ron Hubbard founded this Contest to promote the writing of speculative fiction short stories—in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The idea was to inspire, train, and promote young writers who very often have a hard time getting noticed by professional publishers.
Shortly after its inception, the Contest was expanded to provide the same services for illustrators.
The stories you read in this anthology come from budding writers. Some stories are the authors’ first publication.
All new authors are invited to send stories from anywhere in the world. There is no charge for entering this Contest, and we show no favoritism. When we receive a story, as judges, we have no way of knowing the author’s age, gender, nationality, race, or political affiliation.
In past years I’ve talked about how stories are selected and what I’m searching for. If you want to read about that, look at the introductions to the volumes I’ve edited over the last many years.
Today I’d like to talk about something else that is important to both me and this Contest: nurturing talent.
When L. Ron Hubbard founded the Contest, he created it to run every three months to help motivate new writers to compose on a regular basis. As a young writer some thirty-seven years ago, I did just that—until I got serious and wrote a story that won the grand prize. So inspiring authors was important to him.
More than just giving authors a goal to reach for, giving validation was just as important. In fact, teaching writers to believe in themselves may be the greatest motivator. So, we grant awards and certificates to those who win Honorable Mention, Silver Honorable Mention, Semifinalist, and Finalist places, as well as to our First-, Second-, and Third-place winners.
Authors who are struggling to break into the field need both encouragement and training. You’ll find a free online writing course taught by me, Hugo and Nebula Award–winner Orson Scott Card, and World Fantasy Award–winner Tim Powers at our website WritersoftheFuture.com.
Training and inspiring writers aren’t things I do only with the Contest. For the past fifteen years I’ve offered free writing tips (and free writing books).
I wish I could convey just how deeply I really want to help, but with thousands of writers who enter this Contest every quarter, I don’t have time to do everything I’d like. I feel like Bilbo Baggins, who told Gandalf, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
The bulk of my time for this Contest is spent studying anonymous entries and trying to gauge just how well each story succeeds and how much potential each author has.
Over the past three decades, I’ve discovered and mentored some great ones.
Part of my time with the Contest is spent training new authors in the week before the annual awards ceremony, or critiquing our semifinalists, or speaking at writing conventions.
Some of my time is spent editing this anthology so that we can present the fine new writers we’ve discovered. That’s both an honor and a privilege. As an editor, I get to put together a collection of stories I truly love. I hope you love them, too.
In this anthology, you’ll find tales by new authors and illustrations by artists from all over the world—stories that will make you wonder, make you laugh, make you cry, and hopefully will leave you inspired to create your own best future.
—David Farland
December 2021