Today, as L. Ron Hubbard's literary agency, Author Services, Inc. perpetuates that commitment and carries out his legacy by administering the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests in accordance with his wishes. The Contests are, in fact, now the largest and most influential merit competitions of their kind in the world. The winners are selected by the top professionals in their fields and they receive distinctive awards and substantial cash prizes. They participate in special writer's and illustrator's workshops that have become models by which other workshops and seminars are gauged. And they are published in an award-winning anthology that furnishes both an international showcase for their work and a springboard for the tangible recognition and professional advancement that L. Ron Hubbard defined as the program's fundamental goals.

Mr. Hubbard's founding vision for the Writers of the Future Contest was to discover and publish the best new and aspiring writers. The field of speculative fiction, an embracing term for science fiction and fantasy, was chosen not only for L. Ron Hubbard's love of and success within the genre—but for the freedom of imagination and expression that it offered as what he termed "the herald of possibility."

At the time of its inception, the very idea of a contest of this scope and of a book filled with first-time fiction by amateur writers was seen in many literary venues as "untried" and "challenging," but at the same time as something both "desirable" and "long-needed." The growth, impact and far-ranging influence of the contest has fulfilled—and widely surpassed—every expectation.