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How the Writers of the Future Contest and Dave Wolverton Gave Me a Writing Career
Farewell Dave Wolverton aka David Farland (1957–2022) bestselling author and mentor to so many
This is my story of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest, and the Writers of the Future events, which I attended in 1998 and 1999, first as a published finalist, and second as a third-place winner. If you win third place, you receive a $500 prize, and a generous payment for your story appearing in the Writers of the Future Anthology. If you’re a published finalist, you get a plaque, and they do pay you generously for appearing in the book. A talented artist illustrates your work, and you even get to meet the artist at the event.
Take it from a published finalist (twice)
Until 1999, there was no such thing as a published finalist coming back and “winning” the next year. But in 1999, there were three of us who accomplished this feat, and one of us (no, not me!) actually won the Grand Prize. If you win the Grand Prize, you receive not only a plaque, but a $4,000 check, and a gorgeous lucite trophy. If you were one of the first-prize quarterly winners, you also got one of these great-looking trophies. The winner was my friend Scott Nicholson, who wrote “The Vampire…
