Introduction

Only another writer can know how very hard it is to persuade oneself to set out on that long winding road to publication with all its back alleys and notorious dead-end streets. You not only have to convince the publishing world that your work is worthy of seeing print, you have to defeat your own self-doubt which is at least as hard, if not even harder.

After a long and illustrious career in producing fiction, best-selling author L. Ron Hubbard understood how difficult the lives of would-be writers were. He had a genius for creating compelling characters, swashbuckling plots and colorful settings, but, equally as rare, he had a firm grasp on communicating how one might accomplish these elements in one’s own fiction. Though he had published a number of well-received “how to” articles in various creative writing magazines and spoken to numerous audiences on the subject, he wanted to do more to encourage and mentor new voices in the field.

So, in 1983, he created and endowed the Writers of the Future Contest for up-and-coming science fiction and fantasy writers just on the edge of breaking out. Designed, with its substantial cash prizes (and no entry fee!), acclaimed annual anthology to showcase new writing and yearly workshop with seasoned professionals, to rapidly advance novice writers in their budding careers, the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest has by now, in its twenty-fifth year, sought out, instructed and promoted three hundred winners.

Have they all gone on to stardom? No, but an impressive percentage have achieved sterling careers that delight their audiences. Some of the names, such as Dave Wolverton, Jo Beverley, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Reed, Dean Wesley Smith, Bruce Holland Rogers, James Alan Gardner, Sean Williams, Steve Baxter, Patrick Rothfuss, Nancy Farmer, Eric Flint, Steven Savile and Jeff Carlson, are ones that you will already recognize. Others are just now making their mark and you’ll be hearing about them soon in the years to come.

Of course, sometimes winning in the Contest is as far as a writer ever gets. That is because what Mr. Hubbard has generously provided here for us is a chance to jump-start your career and what you make of that opportunity after going home from the workshop is up to the individual. L. Ron Hubbard, with his gift for getting to the heart of what makes a story work, has laid down a guide map for newcomers. We still have to put his lessons to work and remain committed to a difficult journey.

I know this program is effective, though, because it worked for me. In 1987, soon after I began writing seriously, I bought a copy of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future anthology in a bookstore and started entering the Contest. The only signs I’d ever had up to that point that I wasn’t wasting my time writing were occasional scribbled lines of criticism on form rejections. Then in the last quarter of 1988, I won Third Place. It was the headiest moment in my life up to that date.

When Algis Budrys, the Coordinating Judge, called me to see if I would be able to attend the week-long Workshop, I told him that winning was the best thing that had ever happened to me. He gruffly answered that he most sincerely hoped it was not, but in many ways, it was. That phone call telling me I had won was the first time in my life that it seemed possible I would achieve my long-cherished dream of having a career as a writer.

And, for three more people, quarter after quarter now for twenty-five glorious years, a similar phone call has been that moment for them, too, when it all comes into focus and they can see the dreamed-of future becoming real. It is for that magical moment that L. Ron Hubbard created that Contest and so many well known and distinguished writers in the field have been willing to serve as our judges and Workshop instructors.

Today, the Contest is widely known and respected. It has become the standard by which all striving science fiction and fantasy writers can measure their work and we receive entries each quarter from not just all over the United States, but all over the world. Perusing the table of contents of previously published volumes is akin to reading a list of who’s hot and new in the speculative fiction field.

Publishers Weekly recognized the Writers of the Future Contest as “the most enduring forum to showcase new talent in the genre.” Once a writer can mention “winner (or even finalist) in the Writers of the Future Contest” in their cover letter, many doors which were previously closed are now suddenly open. Editors pay attention. Agents are willing to take a look at an unknown’s work.

In 2005, Library Journal presented the Contest its Award of Excellence “in recognition of XXI years of discovering, fostering and nurturing writers and illustrators of speculative fiction and successfully infusing new talent into the fields of literary and visual arts.” It’s no secret that the science fiction and fantasy genre enjoys the most vibrant and successful short story market in America today. It’s still flourishing while other professionally paying short story venues become ever more scarce. As Library Journal noted, the Writers of the Future Contest has been a hugely positive influence in keeping the speculative fiction short story market alive by encouraging so much new talent.

Winners have gone on to have major careers, publishing more than five hundred books and three thousand short stories. They have won Nebula and Hugo Awards, created fictional series enjoyed by countless readers, become bestsellers, then gone on to teach workshops and mentor other new writers themselves, and it all began for each of them with that phone call. Our field has always had a tradition of “pay it forward.” What Mr. Hubbard very generously gave us, we now do our best to honor by helping the next generation of talented writers to find their way. In serving as Coordinating Judge of the Contest, it is my very great pleasure and privilege to give back to the field at least some small measure of what that spine-tingling phone call once gave to me.

In 1988, the scope of the Contest was widened to include budding artists with the creation of the Illustrators of the Future Contest which also provides substantial cash prizes and a showplace for their artistic efforts. At the end of the Contest year, the artist winners from each quarter are assigned one of the Writers of the Future stories to illustrate and then transported to an invaluable workshop taught by Ron Lindahn and Val Lakey Lindahn on how to develop and manage a career as a professional artist. You will find the fruits of the new artists’ extraordinary talents accompanying each story in this anthology. Again, the goal is to jump-start their professional lives and help them avoid many of the pitfalls emerging artists can face. Over the years, our artist winners have gone home and subsequently sold thousands of professional illustrations to a wide array of markets, matching the writers with their success.

Why are the Contests important? Their scope extends far beyond the impact they have upon the actual winners themselves. They are invaluable to everyone who enters. So much of the publishing world is a closed door to the beginner. When we start out, we send in story after story only to receive form rejections which give us no clue what we’re doing wrong. This is because we are competing with seasoned professionals like Tim Powers, Robert Sawyer, Orson Scott Card, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Sean Williams or Robert Silverberg (all Writers of the Future judges, by the way) whose work is professionally polished and whose name on the cover of a publication will help sell copies.

But the single most crucial thing that will make you a better writer or artist is to practice your craft and keep producing new work. If you get discouraged and quit, you will certainly never make it. The two Contests are only open to new writers and artists so that entrants are competing with their peers. Winning is a goal that is conceivably within their grasp while publishing a book with Tor or Del Rey, a story in Fantasy and Science Fiction, or illustrating a cover for Baen may not be at that point in their budding career. The Contests keep us working when we might otherwise give up and for many that industriousness will get us there eventually. I entered the Contest five times and each of those five stories, including the one which won, would not have been written if I had not had the Contest as my goal.

As for those who are not aspiring writers and artists, the Contests are important to them too. L. Ron Hubbard said, “A culture is as rich and capable of surviving as it has imaginative artists . . . It was with this in mind that I initiated a means for new and budding writers to have a chance for their creative efforts to be seen and acknowledged.” As he told us, we need these new talented voices and eyes to help us dream our dreams and shape the future. Thanks to L. Ron Hubbard’s foresight, we have the opportunity each year to read a new set of remarkably talented fictional voices and see through the eyes of another new group of amazing artists.

This book contains twelve edgy, inspiring and thought-provoking stories judged by top professionals in the field to be the best we received in the past Contest year. They have each been illustrated by one of our twelve equally talented Illustrators of the Future. Note the names and keep an eye out. You’re going to be seeing a lot from them in the years to come.

In the meantime, may the Contests continue another twenty-five years, enriching the lives of writers, artists and readers everywhere!