The Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests have just announced their latest quarterly winners, and also some staffing changes.
The winners of the first quarter of the 27th year of the Writers of the Future contest are:
First Place: Brennan Harvey of Huntington Beach, California
Second Place: David D’Amico of Salem, Massachusetts
Third Place: Ryan Harvey of Los Angeles
Each of their stories are in the running for the annual grand prize, and all of them will win cash prizes and “a week-long intensive writing workshop.” Their stories will be featured in the next volume of the L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future anthology.
The winner of the first quarter of the Illustrators of the Future contest are unranked, but they are:
Vivian Friedel of Texas
Scott Hargrave of Indiana
Erik Solem of Colorado
All three are in the running for the annual grand prize, and will receive cash prizes, and attend the illustrator workshop twinned to the writing workshop. They’ll each be chosen to illustrate one of the stories appearing in the WotF anthology.
In terms of staffing, the Writers of the Future contest announces the addition of three new judges: Eric Flint, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Dean Wesley Smith. They join a judging panel which currently includes: Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason, Gregory Benford, Orson Scott Card, Brian Herbert, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Yoji Kondo (aka Eric Kotani), Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Frederik Pohl, Tim Powers, Mike Resnick, Robert J. Sawyer, Robert Silverberg, K.D. Wentworth, and Dave Wolverton. Hoffman, Wentworth, and Wolverton were contest winners before becoming judges.
The contest offers bios of its three newest judges:
Eric Flint: Eric is a prolific and successful author of military science fiction, alternate history, and fantasy. He has written over fifty novels, both solo and in collaboration with K.D. Wentworth, David Drake, David Weber, Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer, and many others. He has edited numerous anthologies, particularly the Grantville Gazette series based on his 1632 universe, and was also the founder and editor of Jim Baen’s Universe online magazine.
Having taken the first-place in the fourth quarter of the 1993 contest, Eric joins the ranks as another winner-turned-judge.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Kristine is an award-winning mystery, romance, science fiction, and fantasy writer. She has written many novels under various names, including Kristine Grayson for romance and Kris Nelscott for mystery. Her novels have made the bestseller lists—even in London—and have been published in fourteen countries and thirteen different languages.
Kristine’s awards range from the Ellery Queen Readers Choice Award, to the Hugo, to the John W. Campbell Award. She was nominated for the Hugo, the Shamus, and the Anthony Award all in the same year (2009). She is the only person in the history of science fiction to have won a Hugo Award for editing and a Hugo Award for fiction.
Dean Wesley Smith: As a published finalist at the inaugural Writers of the Future ceremonies in 1985, Dean was the first person ever to receive a Writers of the Future award, accepting his framed certificate from judges Gregory Benford, Roger Zelazny, Robert Silverberg, and Algis Budrys.
Over the following twenty-years, Dean has published more than ninety popular novels and over one hundred published short stories. He has over eight million copies of his books in print and has been published in nine different countries. He has written many original novels in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and romance as well as books for television, movies, games, and comics.
Quarterly deadlines for the contests are 31 December, 31 March, 30 June, and 30 September. Full entry details are available on this page.