Hollywood trip, workshop and awards ceremony to come

Tryon resident Erik Bundy has been officially announced as a winner in the Writers of the Future Contest. The contest, one of the most prestigious writing competitions, is in its 34th year and is judged by some of the premier names in speculative fiction.

Mr. Bundy’s winning short story has earned him a cash prize, a trip to Hollywood for a week-long intensive workshop, and a gala awards ceremony which draws in excess of 1,000 attendees. His story will be published in the annual bestseller, “L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 34.”

Erik Bundy lives in the wooded mountain area of North Carolina. He is a graduate of the six-week Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, and a grand prize winner of the Sidney Lanier Poetry Competition. More than 30 of his stories and poems have been published. He expects to publish two fantasy novels and a novelette in his new Crying Woman Road series early in 2018. His story, “Turnabout,” was inspired by a visit to Morocco with a Spanish tour group.

The Writers of the Future Contest judges include Tim Powers, author of “On Stranger Tides”; Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert, “Dune”; Robert J. Sawyer “Flash Forward”; Robert Silverberg, “Sailing to Byzantium”; Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, “A Mote in God’s Eye”; Orson Scott Card, “Ender’s Game”; and Nnedi Okorafor, “Who Fears Death,” to name a few.

L. Ron Hubbard created The Writers of the Future writing contest in 1983 to provide a means for aspiring writers of speculative fiction to get that much-needed break. Due to the success of the writing contest, the companion Illustrators of the Future Contest was created in 1988.

The intensive mentoring process has proven very successful. The 380 past winners of the writing contest have published 838 novels and nearly 4,000 short stories. They have produced 27 New York Times bestsellers and their works have sold over 50 million copies.

The 310 past winners of the illustrating contest have produced over 4,500 illustrations, 356 comic books, graced 594 books and albums with their art and visually contributed to 36 TV shows and 46 major movies.

The Writers of the Future Award is the genre’s most prestigious award of its kind and has now become the largest, most successful and demonstrably most influential vehicle for budding creative talent in the world of contemporary fiction.

Since inception, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests have produced 32 anthology volumes and awarded a cumulative $930,000 in cash prizes and royalties.

Hundreds of winners have had successful writing careers following their win and publication in the anthology, and to date has launched the careers of 12 New York Times best-selling authors including: Jo Beverley, Tobias S. Buckell, Nancy Farmer, Eric Flint, Karen Joy Fowler, Tim Myers, Patrick Rothfuss, Lisa Smedmen, Dean Wesley Smith, Elizabeth Wein, Sean Williams, and Dave Wolverton aka David Farland.

For more information about the contest, visit www.Writers
OfTheFuture.com.

– submitted by Carmen Bartolo