News from Stephen Kotowych on the Writers of the Future Contest at the Con in Toronto

Writers of the Future was everywhere this year at Toronto's Ad Astra
(which was held this past weekend).

Past winners in attendance included myself, Tony Pi, Mike Rimar, and
Jim Hines, plus contest judges Kevin Anderson and Rebecca Moesta were
the con Guests of Honour (in Canada they get an extra 'u' ;), and it
was great to get caught up with them. Of course, WOTF judge Robert J.
Sawyer was in attendance as well, and did a great reading from his
forthcoming book WAKE.

There were also a couple of panels that featured WOTF: Tony and I were
on a panel called Getting the Most Out of Writing Workshops, which
outlined how to get in to, and what to expect from, most of the major
SF&F writing workshops. And first thing Sunday morning was our Writers
of the Future panel, moderated by Jim Hines, with Mike Rimar, Tony Pi,
and myself participating. We had a decent crowd for so early in the
morning and had a good discussion of the contest, tips we'd learned,
and advice for those planning on entering (we told them to avoid the
use of the word 'orb' in their stories--Kathy hates that...) A couple
of people said they'd be submitting stories by the deadline for this
quarter...including Mike Rimar who, as a published finalist, is still
eligible to enter (I'd kill to go again, the lucky dog...)

On Saturday night Kevin Anderson and Rob Sawyer (and his wife
Caroline) joined a bunch of us to hang out. Included in the group was
Jessica Strider, who runs the SF&F section at the World's Biggest
Bookstore in Toronto where we did a very successful reading and
signing of WOTF 23 last Fall. It was a great time. (Also on Saturday
night Jim Hines made some new friends amongst some of the participants
in the con's Masquerade...)

And Jim had a very successful launch at Ad Astra for Goblin War, the
third book in his Goblin Trilogy--many books were sold and signed, and
many 'Goblin Lover' buttons handed out as well :)

For a more detailed description people can check out my blog
(http://kotowych.blogspot.com/).

Best wishes!

Stephen