Writers of the Future, Volume 28 (2 page)
Read Writers of the Future, Volume 28 Online
Authors: L. Ron Hubbard
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy
© 2012 Galaxy Press, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Any unauthorized copying, translation, duplication, importation or distribution, in whole or in part, by any means, including electronic copying, storage or transmission, is a violation of applicable laws.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact Galaxy Press, LLC, 7051 Hollywood Blvd., Suite 200, Hollywood, CA 90028.
Of Woven Wood: © 2012 Marie Croke
The Rings of Mars: © 2012 William Ledbetter
The Paradise Aperture: © 2012 David Carani
Story Vitality: © 2010 L. Ron Hubbard Library
Fast Draw: © 2012 Roy Hardin
The Siren: © 2012 M. O. Muriel
Contact Authority: © 2012 William Mitchel
The Command for Love: © 2012 Nick T. Chan
My Name Is Angela: © 2012 Harry Lang
Lost Pine: © 2012 Jacob A. Boyd
Advice for a New Illustrator: © 2012 Shaun Tan
Shutdown: © 2012 Corry L. Lee
While Ireland Holds These Graves: © 2012 Tom Doyle
The Poly Islands: © 2012 Gerald Warfield
Insect Sculptor: © 2012 Scott T. Barnes
Illustration on page 14: © 2012 Emily Grandin
Illustration on page 53: © 2012 J. F. Smith
Illustrations on pages 93 & 138: © 2012 Paul Pederson
Illustration on page 195: © 2012 Hunter Bonyun
Illustration on page 255: © 2012 Rhiannon Taylor
Illustration on page 314: © 2012 Carly Trowbridge
Illustration on page 329: © 2012 Mago Huang
Illustration on page 413: © 2012 Pat R. Steiner
Illustration on page 439: © 2012 Greg Opalinski
Illustration on page 486: © 2012 Fiona Meng
Illustration on page 530: © 2012 Jay Richard
Illustration on page 553: © 2012 John W. Haverty Jr.
Cover Artwork: Beyond Babylon © 2012 Stephen Youll
Interior Design: Jerry Kelly
This anthology contains works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Opinions expressed by nonfiction essayists are their own.
ISBN 978-1-61986-099-5 ePub version
ISBN 978-1-61986-076-6 print version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012933271
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(word and medallion) and
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uture
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CONTENTS
by K. D. Wentworth
by Marie Croke
Illustrated by Emily Grandin
by William Ledbetter
Illustrated by J. F. Smith
by David Carani
Illustrated by Paul Pederson
by L. Ron Hubbard
by Roy Hardin
Illustrated by Paul Pederson
by M. O. Muriel
Illustrated by Hunter Bonyun
by William Mitchell
Illustrated by Rhiannon Taylor
THE IMPORTANCE OF SHORT FICTION
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
by Nick T. Chan
Illustrated by Carly Trowbridge
by Harry Lang
Illustrated by Mago Huang
by Jacob A. Boyd
Illustrated by Pat R. Steiner
by Shaun Tan
by Corry L. Lee
Illustrated by Greg Opalinski
WHILE IRELAND HOLDS THESE GRAVES
by Tom Doyle
Illustrated by Fiona Meng
by Gerald Warfield
Illustrated by Jay Richard
by Scott T. Barnes
Illustrated by John W. Haverty Jr.
Introduction
by K. D. Wentworth
K. D. Wentworth has sold more than eighty pieces of short fiction to such markets as
F&SF, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Realms of Fantasy
,
Weird Tales,
Witch Way to the Mall
and
Return to the Twilight Zone.
Four of her stories have been finalists for the Nebula Award for Short Fiction. Currently, she has eight novels in print, the most recent being
The Crucible of Empire,
written with Eric Flint and published by Baen.
K. D. won the Writers of the Future Contest in 1989 (WotF 5). She later served as the Contest’s First Reader, and in 2008 became the Coordinating Judge as well as the Editor for the Writers of the Future anthology.
She lives in Tulsa with her husband and a combined total of one hundred and sixty pounds of dog (Akita + Siberian “Hussy”) and is working on another new novel with Flint.
Introduction
A
nother year. Another crop of wonderful stories and promising writers! Why has the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest remained such an on-going success year after year now for twenty-eight years
?
The answer to that is twofold: First, the contest is set up to find writers just on the edge of breaking out as professionals and has done an exemplary job of it now for a very long time. Entries are anonymous so that the new writers are competing only with others in the same phase of their developing career. Pay levels are professional and competitive so that we can attract the best of the new writers’ submissions.
Then, second, the winners are not only given monetary prizes, they are published, so that their efforts can be read, and are transported to a professional-level workshop where they are instructed by our well-known panel of judges. The money and chance for publication are the initial big draws here, but it’s being treated as a professional, the chance to network with other writers and the workshop instructors and the workshop training that are the real prizes here, just as Hubbard knew they would be. Money is nice, but it’s soon spent and gone. Knowledge and experience will be with them forever.
This is in the grand tradition of the science fiction/fantasy field of “paying it forward.” When a seasoned professional writer helps someone at the beginning of their writing career, you cannot pay them back in any meaningful way. They don’t need anything that you can give them, but you can, when it’s time, pay it
forward
by helping someone else who is just starting out.
When L. Ron Hubbard set up the Writers of the Future Contest, he was paying it forward in a big way. The scale is unprecedented. Most authors can help only a few new writers over the course of their career. But that is the sole focus of the Contest. It consistently seeks out and promotes at least twelve writers a year, not counting those just on the edge of breaking out who were encouraged to write more stories just so they would have something to enter.
That means over the last twenty-eight years, we have published and trained more than four hundred new writers and more than 250 illustrators. Not all of them have gone on to lucrative careers, but an impressive portion has. Even many of those who have not yet become household names are selling regularly and their bylines appear in anthology and magazine tables of contents throughout the year. At least twice a month, I get a note from one of our winners who has just sold a first novel. Kristine Kathyrn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Eric Flint, Robert Reed, Jay Lake, Steve Savile, Sean Williams, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Bruce Holland Rogers, David Farland, Jo Beverley and Patrick Rothfuss are just a few of the wonderful writers who came out of the Contest.
L. Ron Hubbard knew that by helping new writers he was also helping fans everywhere. He believed that to function properly, society needed a healthy creative life. He 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.” He knew that, if we do not provide a forum for new writers’ work, many of them will give up and then we will all lose.
In 1988, the L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest was created as a companion to Writers of the Future. Again, the purpose is to find talented artists just on the edge of breaking out, recognize and commend their abilities, publish their creative efforts and instruct them on how to move up to the next level in their career. Their talent must be nurtured and given a chance to grow, like a tiny flame that builds into a full roaring fire. Again, the meme is paying it forward, assisting those who need just a small break at the moment when it can do the most good.
Quarterly winners are assigned to illustrate one of the anthology’s stories, then transported to the annual illustrators’ workshop taught by seasoned professionals Cliff Nielsen, Ron Lindahn and Val Lakey Lindahn, among others. They dispense invaluable advice about how to develop and manage a career as an artist and keep inspiration coming. Unfortunately, as rare as it is, it is not enough to just have talent. Emerging artists must learn how to develop a portfolio and professional contacts, market their work and make it pay.
The workshop/anthology/prize money format is a combo that has been working well for an impressive number of years, both for writers and artists. Hubbard knew what he was doing when he set all this in motion. Now, aspiring writers and artists just have to send in their work so that we can give them what they need to rise to the next level.
That old adage “You can’t win if you don’t enter!” has never been truer. We want to see your story or novel win the Hugo or the Nebula in a few years. We want to see your art win an Oscar as Illustrators’ judge and former winner Shaun Tan did last year.
So send in those stories and illustrations! The future is just within your grasp.
Of Woven Wood
written by
Marie Croke
illustrated by
EMILY GRANDIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marie Croke was born and raised in southern Maryland. Being the sixth child out of nine, she watched the rest of her family go to bed with books, so she would sit in bed with a miniature dictionary.
By the time she could read, the basement had been turned into a library, shoved full of books of every genre imaginable on account of the number of people in her family and their very different tastes. Many science fiction and fantasy authors introduced themselves to her in that basement. Eventually, she did start having to buy her own books.
The two authors she credits with shaping her love of otherworldly stories are L. Frank Baum and Anne McCaffrey. In fact, the only childhood birthday she can remember with any clarity is the one on which she received the entire Oz series. She hopes to one day inspire other children to dream big the way these authors inspired her.
In 2008, Marie began following her own dreams. Her Writers of the Future win is her first professional sale and she has since sold two more stories, one to
Daily Science Fiction
and another to
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
.
Marie graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a degree in economics and she currently lives in Maryland with her fiancé and their two children.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Emily Grandin was born April 2nd, 1978, in Hong Kong. She first circumvented the earth at nine months old, and has been an avid traveler ever since. Growing up in the Canadian suburbs of Montreal, she was a typical tomboy with a strong distaste for the color pink. When asked what her favorite color was, she would answer that it was a tie between green and black. To this day she still gets annoyed when people point out that black is not technically a color.
She spent her younger years climbing trees, casing out the local haunted mansion, devouring books and playing by the river. At school her favorite subject was, of course, art class.
As she got older, she came to terms with the color pink, sort of, stopped climbing trees as much, but her love for the arts endured.
In her mid-teens she moved with her family to Stockholm, Sweden, where she finished her university-preparatory school in the science program. She proceeded to study geology at the University of Stockholm, where she entertained her classmates with the post-apocalyptic graphic novel she would draw during lectures. She later realized one of her dreams when she was accepted into the architecture program at the Royal Institute of Technology.
Emily lives with her longtime partner and professional cartoonist, Axl. She aims at doing what she has been told is impossible, to scratch out a living drawing sci-fi themes and bunnies.