Next Installment on the WOTF Coffee Table Book

Here is the next video of the evolution to create our Writers of the Future 25th Anniversary Edition coffee table book:



Be sure to pass this along to your friends and fellow writers.

WOTF Success Rate

As part of his research, Kevin J. Anderson has established some fantastic facts. One, he comments on below.

Also — and this is astonishing — if you measure success by whether our winners/students leave the workshop and go on to publish professional novels or multiple pro short stories [most aspiring writers would call that success], WotF has about a 30-35% success rate. That’s unheard of for a writing class or workshop.

Anniversary Edition is almost fully written

The photos for each year have been selected. We have gotten most of the write ups in now from past winners who have gone on with their career in writing. Still a few missing -- if you are one of them, please get it to us. Kevin will be wrapping all copy this coming Monday.


NOTE: This is the Writers of the Future 25th Anniversary edition. There will be a separate edition created in a few years when Illustrators of the Future passes its 25 year mark.



Be sure to forward this to anyone else you know who is interested in Writers of the Future.

Thousands of photos to go through for WOTF Coffee Table Book

Kevin J. Anderson has been going through all the photos, year by year, to pick out the key representative shots for each year. It is quite an exciting process. Kevin, who was already extremely excited about this project, has gotten more and more excited every day as we discover more incredible photos and letters from those first 25 years.



Again, please be sure to pass this along to other aspiring writers and past winners. It is a very exciting project.

Ray Bradbury, AE van Vogt and Jack Williamson

This shot was taken at the first Writers of the Future dinner celebration at Chasen's Reataurant in Beverly Hills. We are finding an amazing number of incredible photos as we research the contest's history in putting the 25th Anniversary Edition together.


(from l to r) Ray Bradbury, A.E. van Vogt and Jack Williamson, three of science fiction’s greatest authors, in attendance at the first awards ceremony for “L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future” held in 1985 at the Beverly Hills Chasen’s Restaurant.

To see the full article that went out with the above photo go to:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/04/prweb3878814.htm

Kevin J. Anderson Has Arrived

Kevin J. Anderson has now arrived to our offices and is writing the 25th Anniversary Writers of the Future book. Jason Niedle is the book's designer who you will see with Kevin in this short clip.



Be sure to tell your friends to check out this blog for our regular updates on the 25th Anniversary special edition coffee table book.

And the books from winners continue pouring in...

Every day, more and more boxes of books from past winners are arriving.

And today we also received a very special package. Sarah Totton, winner in WOTF 22, sent in her first published book which is now going into the library. You can see her site at www.sarahtotton.com.

Have a look and see for yourself:



Be sure to send this around to your writer friends, Writers of the Future contacts and to anyone else you think will be interested.

25th Anniversary Edition Update

If you haven't seen the Writers of the Future library at Author Services, then have a look at this video. You will also see what we are doing to ensure we have all the books that have been published by our past winners!



Be sure to share this video with your friends as well!

Great advice from Frederik Pohl

In digging through our files for our commemorative WOTF book, we found
the following great advice from Fredrick Pohl:

"When unpublished writers ask for advice about how to get their careers
moving I always advise them to enter their stories in the Wotf contest.
It's easy enough to do. You go to a bookstore and ask them for a copy
of L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future. Each copy contains
an entry blank, with the contest's address, and a copy of the rules and
rewards. It's a good idea to read some of the winning stories. Type out
a nice clean copy of your best story and send it in to that address. Three
months later, do the same with your second best story. Three months
after that, your third best, and you keep on doing that until you run out
of stories. (Which actually you should never do. You're still writing,
aren't you?)

"The reason for doing it that is is that the contest is organized on a
quarterly basis. Every three months, the staff gathers up all the stories
that have accumulated in that period and ships them out to judges. When
the judges have finished their deliberations, the winner gets $1,000.00,
with lesser amounts for the second and third place. Then, when the fourth
quarter has been dealt with, the four quarterly 1st place winners go to a
different set of judges, who pick the grand prize winner, who gets another
$5,000.00.

"The thing to remember is that each quarterly batch is separate. One
batch may be twice as good as the next. Or, through the luck of the draw,
may just have more or fewer good stories.

"That's why you try to be in as many quarters as possible."

Calling all Past Winners!!!!!!!!!

We (including Kevin Anderson who is our editor) are getting very, very excited about the book we are currently compiling to commemorate 25 years of L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest. It is great to hear from our winners who have gone on to achieve success and to hear what they are doing now. So far we have heard from the following (and there maybe some I have missed from this list as it changes every hour): Jo Beverley, Ilsa Bick, Tobias Buckell, Amy Sterling Casil, Stoney Compton, Nancy Farmer, Karen Joy Fowler, James Gardner, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Howard Hendrix, Jim C Hines, Michael Jasper, Jay Lake, Michael Metzler, Syne Mitchell, John F Moore, Scott Nicholson, Patrick Rothfuss, David Sakmyster, Steve Savile, Ken Scholes, Dean Wesley Smith (he has reminded us that he was the very first winner to accept his award at the very first awards ceremony for WOF volume 1!) He posted a photo at his blog
If you or someone you know is a contest success story - write to us at WOTFContests@gmail.com. Remember - support the contest and get your copy of WOTF 25! Publishers Weekly gave it a Starred Review!

A New "25 years" commemorative book planned - we would appreciate your help!

ATTENTION! To commemorate 25 years of the Writers of the Future contest, Galaxy Press (the WOTF volume publisher) is putting together a nice, heavily illustrated coffee-table book to be released at this year's awards ceremony - 28 August 2010 in Hollywood. Kevin J. Anderson is acting as the executive editor on the project. Over the past quarter century, the contest has been highly successful, producing a large crop of published authors, and we'd like to devote part of the book to spotlighting some of those success stories. We would like a paragraph or two on those winners' thoughts on the contest and how they feel it affected their career. We'd need something by April 15, if possible. We will feature author photos and their photos of published books. Please respond to wotfcontests@gmail.com Thanks in advance. And if you are reading this and aren't a published winner, but know one - please pass this on. Remember - support the contest and buy your copy of WOTF 25!

What is a Silver Honorable Mention?

Dear All,

Good news! You are all getting so good and there were so many
good stories this quarter, that we made some exceptions to
the rules. First of all, we had 9 finalists (there are usually 8),
and we had a story that was better than the rest of the
Honorables so it was deemed a Silver Honorable. May it
become a tradition. That all depends upon you!

I tell you, you all, collectively, are raising the bar!!

Keep up the good work!

Joni