The grand prize winners of the 26th Annual Writers of the Future Award and the 21st Illustrators of the Future Award were just recently announced in a ceremony at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. During the same ceremony, all the past year’s quarterly winners also received their trophies and cash prizes.
The writer grand prize winner is Laurie Tom, of Torrance, California, who wrote “Living Rooms”. The illustrators grand prize winner is Seth J. Rowanwood, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The year’s quarterly winners were also recognized at the ceremony. Writing winners include:
Lael Salaets, author of “The Black Side of Memory”
Alex Black, author of “Lisa with Child”
Tom Crosshill, author of “Seeing Double”
Brad R. Torgersen, author of “Exanastasis”
Scott W. Baker, author of “Poison Inside the Walls”
Simon Cooper, author of “Confliction”
Brent Knowles, author of “Digital Rights”
Jeff Young, author of “Written in Light”
Jason Fischer, author of “The House of Nameless”
Adam Colston, author of “Not in the Flesh”
K.C. Ball, author of “Coward’s Steel”
Illustrator winners include:
Irena Kovalenko
Ven Locklear
Tyler Carter
Jordan Cornthwaite
Olivia Pelaez
Jingxuan Hu
Kelsey Wroten
Rebecca Gleason
R.M. Winch
Rachael Jade Sweeney
Cassandra Shaffer
Prior to the awards ceremony, the winners were flown in from as far away as Australia, Ukraine, Ireland, and Canada, to attend a week-long workshop taught by contest judges—including Kevin J. Anderson, Tim Powers, and Stephen Hickman—each one an experienced professional in the field providing sound advice based on hard-won experience.
The quarterly writing contest series was established in 1983, for new authors, offering cash prizes of up to $5,000. Judges include: Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason, Gregory Benford, Orson Scott Card, Eric Flint, Brian Herbert, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Yoji Kondo (aka Eric Kotani), Anne McCaffrey, Rebecca Moesta, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, Tim Powers, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert J. Sawyer, Robert Silverberg, Dean Wesley Smith, K.D. Wentworth, Sean Williams, and Dave Wolverton. Hoffman, Wentworth, and Wolvertson were contest winners before becoming judges. The quarterly illustrators contest was established in 1988. The judges of that contest include: Vincent Di Fate, Leo & Diane Dillon, Bob Eggleton, Laura Brodian Freas, Stephen Hickman, Ron & Val Lindahn, Stephan Martiniere, Judith Miller, Cliff Nielsen, Sergey Poyarkov, H.R. Van Dongen, and Stephen Youll.
As a winner, if you are a writer and not professionally published, you will never have an opportunity like this one. Your story should be on its way to KD to look at, I’d fix that now. cheers
I’m wary of the Scientology link.
John: Don’t worry, they don’t try to indoctrinate you. As an illustration winner, the only thing I heard about it was “If you have any questions about scientology, you can ask so-and-so.” The awesome thing is that for whatever reason, scientologists hold creative minds in high esteem, which is why this contest is around to begin with. Just take advantage of the opportunity, as it is a really amazing one.