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Contest Can Mean Lucrative Career for Winners
For a printable version of this release, please click here.
December 1999 - How to break into an industry that's worth billions of dollars just on the basis of your creative juices and hard work? It's not merely a dream. In the multi-billion dollar American book publishing industry, science fiction along with its sister genres, fantasy and horror, attracts millions of readers each year. And many aspiring and budding writers are getting their first break in the field through the internationally acclaimed L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.
The contest, the most prestigious one for new writers of speculative fiction -- the term that encompasses these genres -- was established by L. Ron Hubbard in late 1983 to discover and acknowledge new writing talent. Since then over 250 novels, including New York Times bestsellers, and over 2,000 short stories have been published by contestants.
One of the many successes from the contest is Dave Wolverton who signed a three-book contract with Bantam Books two weeks after winning the grand prize. He later joined the ranks of New York Times bestselling authors with Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia and A Very Strange Trip, a novel he wrote based on a screenplay by L. Ron Hubbard.
Among the benefits, winners receive cash prizes, an all-expense paid trip to Hollywood for the award ceremony and a week-long writers workshop and the publication of their works in the annual anthology, L.Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future.
Although the contest encourages entrants from all walks of life, it is estimated that 60% of the manuscripts submitted are from college students, many of whom discovered the contest by reading the anthology.
"The Contest, in recent years has encouraged more submissions from college and university students. We find that students urge other students to enter their manuscripts who then encourage other students. It snowballs," commented Nathalie Cordebard, Contest Coordinator. The contest is administrated by Author Services Inc., Mr. Hubbard's literary agency.
Another impressive feature of the contest is the panel of judges which includes some of the biggest names in speculative fiction today: Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason, Gregory Benford, Algis Budrys, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Andre Norton, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, Tim Powers, Robert Silverberg, Jack Williamson and Dave Wolverton.
When asked if there was any one tip she would give to would-be entrants, the Contest Coordinator said, "I suggest picking up and reading a copy of the latest anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume XV or any of the earlier volumes. They give the flavor of the contest and the readers will get great writing advice from essays contained in each volume of the anthology."
So the career of your dreams, can be closer than you think. For more information, please send a SASE to: L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest, P.O. Box 1630, Los Angeles, CA 90078 or check out the contest's website www.writersofthefuture.com.
Mary Tinat
Bridge Publications
323-953-3320
info@bridgepub.com
http://www.bridgepub.com
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