[Picture]

      Consequently in late 1983, he established and sponsored the Writers of The Future Contest. Expressly for the unpublished novelist (candidates may have previously published three short stories or a novelette), Writers of The Future has subsequently become the most respected and significant forum for new talent in the whole of the fantasy and science fiction realm. To ensure professional expertise in the selection of winners, judges represent some of the very greatest names in speculative fiction, including Robert Silverberg, Frank Herbert, Jack Williamson, Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey. In addition to cash awards, L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of The Future Contest has proven a springboard for the future publication of contest winners and entrants. Indeed, since inception, the contest has launched the professional careers of some 150 young authors, and placed more than a hundred new novels on American shelves–most significantly including the novelization of two original LRH stories, Ai! Pedrito! and A Very Strange Trip. That is, while Ron had originally conceived the stories as full-length screenplays (replete with detailed notes on direction, characterization, sets and sound) he granted the novelizations to young authors from the Writers of The Future stable. The point: he was providing a golden opportunity to break into exclusive literary circles and otherwise forwarding the spirit of a contest described as, “a credit to American literature and a singular, generous event.”

[Picture]

      “The artist injects the spirit of life into a culture,” Ron wrote at the inauguration of his Writers of The Future program, and if expressly referencing tomorrow’s authors, those same sentiments certainly apply to himself. Today, there are more than 115 million L. Ron Hubbard books in circulation, prompting Professor of English and Foreign Languages, Stephen V. Whaley to declare, “Without a doubt, L. Ron Hubbard is one of the most prolific and influential writers of the twentieth century.”




Writer Photographer Filmmaker Maker of music Philosopher of Art