His dedication to helping the beginner—to eagerly reaching out to those aspiring to write but tentative about how to get started—also found early fruition in December, 1940 in the town of Ketchikan, Alaska. In July of 1940 he had set out from Seattle, Washington on an expedition to Alaska under the flag of the prestigious Explorers Club. Winter and inhospitable weather found him laying over in Ketchikan, and there, in December of that year—spurred again by his unflagging concern for budding creative talent—he launched what he called the Golden Pen Award Writing Contest on a radio show he was hosting. It was a distinct harbinger of things to come. He encouraged listeners to write stories and send them in and he would—and did—personally provide the prizes.

The culmination of L. Ron Hubbard's enthusiastic commitment to actively fostering the work of new and aspiring writers of demonstrated ability, came with his establishment in 1983 of both the Writers of the Future Contest and the Writers of the Future annual anthology of the winning, best new original stories of science fiction, fantasy and horror.