January 09, 2004

I'm a Finalist in Writers of the Future.

I had just erased the Writers of the Future Contest from my submissions white board thinking no news was a late rejection when ten minutes later this email came.


Dear Writer,
Congratulations! Your entry to the 4th quarter 2003 (July 1 - September 30) L. Ron Hubbard Writers of The Future Contest is in the Finals! Judging results which will determine the winners have, however, been delayed in the Christmas mails. While I was hoping to have the winners contacted before the end of the year, I really doubt it will happen. So, if you have another entry to send in for the 1st quarter 2004 (October 1 - December 31), feel free to do so. Put a big note on it that says your entry for the last quarter is in the Finals. I'll then hold your entry aside until the winners have been selected and contacted. Best of luck to each of you! Rachel, Contest Administrator.

There's still no guarantee that I'll be in with the winners or be published, but this is nice to know anyway, and I think it's more than just a pleasant put-off. This is one of the biggest Science Fiction and Fantasy contests for an unpublished writer. It was founded by L. Ron Hubbard (yes the same one, but the church isn't involved with the contest) and is respected amongst the Science Fiction and Fantasy set. The judges are people like Larry Niven, Orson Scott Card, Gregory Benford, Ann McCaffrey, you get the idea... There's plenty of competition, so I'm going to take what good news as it comes and celebrate making it to the finals. Woohoo!

They have now posted the winners and published finalists from the contest online. I'm not among that company so I'm pretty sure I've been rejected. I sent off an email just to make sure I'm free to move on with the story. Glad I celebrated while I could. ;)

But then today I received a snail mail "Congratulations... holding your story for possible inclusion in Writer's of the Future Vol. XX." So I'm doing the happy dance again. Anthologies do this in case they need to fill some pages at the last minute, so my chances for publication are still slim, but I'm gonna get a certificate for sure. That's a whole lot better than a #2 pencil in the eye! So I'm taking my happiness where I can.

Posted by bill at January 9, 2004 07:49 PM
Comments

Congratulations on being a finalist. I'm one as well. My experience about finding our somewhat parallels yours, except that I never saw a list online of the winners (and still can't seem to find one on their website.) I found out I wasn't a winner because I got an e-mail saying that the story I had submitted for the next quarter had been entered in the contest. I e-mailed to check if that meant I wasn't a winner, and they confirmed it.

But then I got the snail mail about possible inclusion. Here's hoping they have room for both our stories.

Posted by: Eric James Stone at January 29, 2004 12:33 PM (Spam: 50%)

Eric,

According to this site
http://www.writersofthefuture.com/awards.htm

the winners for Q4 2003 are:
1. Into the Gardens of the Night by Jay Lake
2. Beautiful Singer by Steve Bein
3. Dark Harvest by Geoffrey Girard

And the published finalists:

Luc Reid
Ken Liu

I will say that from what I understand, if they didn't think our stories were good, we would have been rejected quickly, so if they do have an empty slot, best of luck to you. And if not, then best of luck at Asimov's. Stay in touch and let me know how things go.

Posted by: Bill at January 29, 2004 12:52 PM (Spam: 50%)

Those are the winners for the year ending September 30, 2002. They're listed as 2003 because the awards ceremony and actual publication were in 2003.

The way they've set up the web site is kind of confusing; they really should list the winners by contest year instead of publication year.

Posted by: Eric James Stone at January 29, 2004 01:56 PM (Spam: 50%)