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Kevin J. Anderson is the author of over a hundred books, nearly half of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has over twenty million copies in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for the Nebula Award, Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award and New York Times Notable Book. Anderson coauthored eleven books in the Dune saga with fellow WotF judge Brian Herbert, and eight high-tech thrillers with WotF judge Dr. Doug Beason. Anderson’s epic Saga of Seven Suns and his Terra Incognita fantasy trilogy (including two crossover rock CDs) are his most ambitious works. He has written numerous novels based on The X-Files, Batman and Superman and Star Wars (particularly the Young Jedi Knights series with his wife, Rebecca Moesta, who is also a WotF judge). He has edited seven anthologies (three of which are the bestselling SF anthologies of all time).
Living in Colorado, Anderson is an avid hiker and mountain climber; he has scaled all fifty-four of the state’s peaks higher than 14,000 feet and has walked more than 300 miles of the Colorado Trail. As a new author, he was an early WotF contestant, entering many times before he became a professional author in his own right, and thus ineligible for further submissions. He became a guest instructor in 1993 and a judge in 1996.
“When I was starting out, the Contest gave me a goal to shoot for: prize money, trophy, recognition and most of all the chance to participate in a marvelous writing workshop. The quarterly deadlines gave me goals, and I improved so much that I started making sales. I am now honored to be one of the judges for the Contest, and I enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience with each year’s winners.”
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Dr. Doug Beason is the author of fourteen books, eight with collaborator Kevin J. Anderson, including Ignition (fi lm rights purchased by Universal Studios) and Ill Wind, as well as two nonfi ction books and over one hundred short stories, journal articles and scientifi c papers. His novel Assemblers of Infi nity (with Anderson) was a Nebula Award fi nalist, and his short fi ction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies; he has written for publications as diverse as Analog, Amazing Stories, Physical Review Letters, Physics of Fluids and Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science, Technology, and Society. He submitted to the Contest many times when he was an aspiring author, and though he didn’t win, his career has done quite well.
A Fellow of the American Physical Society and PhD physicist, Dr. Beason has over thirty years of research and development experience; he has conducted basic research, directed applied-science programs and formulated national policy. He was recently an associate laboratory director at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, responsible for programs that reduced the global threat of weapons of mass destruction. Prior to that, he completed a career as a US Air Force officer, retiring as a colonel. He has worked on the White House staff for the President’s Science Advisor under both the Clinton and Bush administrations. He currently serves as chief scientist for the USAF Space Command. He has lived in Canada, the Philippine Islands and Okinawa, as well as Washington DC, California, New Mexico and Colorado; he has been married for more than three decades and is the proud father of two daughters. He became a Writers of the Future judge in 1996. “When one considers the enormous impact the contestants and winners are having in publishing, in winning awards, and even in shaping the field of science fiction, the Writers of the Future Contest will benefit generations to come: the gift that keeps on giving.” —Dr. Doug Beason, Writers of the Future Contest Judge (Note: the views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the DOD or its components.)
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At the beginning of his career, Dr. Gregory Benford entered and won Second Place in a Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction contest, so it is fitting that he has served as a judge for the Writers of the Future Contest for all twenty-five years of its history. A PhD physicist, Dr. Benford is the author of such landmark SF novels as Timescape, In the Ocean of Night, Heart of the Comet (with David Brin), Artifact and Eater. He has been nominated for four Hugo Awards and twelve Nebula Awards (winning two). Dr. Benford proposed the “Library of Life” project in a groundbreaking paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and developed the proposal for conducting Arctic aerosol experiments to promote cooling. He is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine.
Who twenty-five years ago would have foreseen the impact of this program? The awards? The professional writers sent out to a welcoming world? The Contest has made so many writers into professionals, a list too long to include here. In the end, the best thing to learn from the teaching and encounters is a good general rule: good writing is not about knowing words, grammar or Faulkner, but having that rare ability to tell the truth—an ability that education and sophistication often serve to suppress. — Dr. Gregory Benford |
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Algis Budrys (1931–2008), known as “AJ” to his students and friends, was one of the most prominent forces behind the Writers of the Future Contest, workshop and anthology series. He was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, on January 9, 1931. He became interested in science fi ction at the age of six, shortly after coming to America when a landlady slipped him a copy of the New York Journal-American Sunday funnies. Algis began selling steadily to the top magazine markets at the age of twenty-one, while living in Great Neck, Long Island. He sold his fi st novel in 1953 and produced eight more novels, including Who?, Rogue Moon, Michaelmas and Hard Landing, and three short story collections. In addition to writing, he was renowned as an editor, serving as editor in chief of Regency Books, Playboy Press and all the titles at Woodall’s Trailer Travel publications. He also edited Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, where he published numerous new authors (many of them his students at WotF). In 1983, Algis was enlisted to help establish a new writing contest for aspiring writers. This was a request he took to heart. Not only did Algis assist with the judging, he used his well-known skills as editor for the annual anthology. He attended scores of science fi ction conventions, speaking on panels during the day about the Writers of the Future, and again at night discussing the Contest with many of the top names in science fi ction and fantasy, using his infl uence and charm to bring them on board as Contest judges. In 2001 Algis Budrys received the L. Ron Hubbard Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts. Algis believed in the Contest and in what it would do for the field of science fiction and fantasy. After more than a quarter of a century, Algis’ faith has certainly proven itself. "We do not claim these writers would be unknown if it were not for us; we do claim that we found them and gave them a platform, in some cases years before anyone else would have. And we will continue to do so, fi nding new names, each year, to join with the old. That was L. Ron Hubbard’s plan, and it is a good one. “The artist injects the spirit of life into a culture,” he wrote. And “A culture is only as great as its dreams, and its dreams are dreamed by artists.” He knew what he was talking about. — Algis Budrys
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Orson Scott Card is the author of the SF novels Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by both adults and younger readers and are increasingly used in schools. Card also writes contemporary fantasy, biblical novels, the American frontier fantasy series the Tales of Alvin Maker, poetry and many plays and scripts. He has won the John W. Campbell Award, the Nebula (twice), the Hugo (four times) and the 2008 Margaret A. Edwards Award for Young Adult Literature. Card was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona and Utah. He recently began a long-term position as a professor of writing and literature at Southern Virginia University. Since 2001, he has run an annual “literary boot camp,” an intensive critiquing workshop for aspiring writers; he has also written two books on writing. Orson Scott Card has been a judge of the Writers of the Future Contest since 1994, having earlier served as a guest instructor at the writers’ workshops, both at Sag Harbor, Long Island and at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles.
“The Writers of the Future Contest gets the best work of new writers with fresh ideas. Reading the winners is like the exhilaration of a brand-new thrill ride—you’ve never heard this voice before, never shared this vision. That’s why the annual anthology is always so good. . . . Writers of the Future simply is the best way to launch a career. It’s one of the forces that keep science fiction alive.” —Orson Scott Card |
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Edd Cartier can call on over 60 years experience in the field of
illustration and commercial art when judging entries to the Illustrators
of the Future Contest.
Edd was instructed in art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn back in the 1930s by artists who also illustrated for pulp magazines. One of his teachers was the art editor for the famous pulp publishing house, Street & Smith. Even before he graduated, Edd began working on illustrations for magazines, and upon graduation he was immediately assigned to one of the foremost pulps, The Shadow. Among his thousands of pieces, Edd has illustrated in such magazines as Unknown, Doc Savage, and Astounding, along with Red Dragon Comics, and he also did covers for Gnome Press and Fantasy Press Books. He illustrated covers for virtually every major author of his time including L. Ron Hubbard, Isaac Asimov, Theodore Sturgeon, Jack Williamson, Gordon R. Dickson and many others. In 1988 at the Writers of the Future awards event held at the United Nations in New York City, Edd was presented the first in what was to become a series of awards, the L. Ron Hubbard Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts.He is also a recipient of First Fandom’s Hall of Fame Award and was recently nominated for a Retro Hugo for the Best Professional Artist of 1950. He has been an Illustrators of the Future judge since 1989. |
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Edd Cartier (1914 - 2008) Edd Cartier was an American pulp magazine illustrator with over 800 illustrations of The Shadow, dozens of illustrations for L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction and fantasy stories during the 1940s and countless illustrations for the remaining writers of the Golden Age, making him one of the leading artists of his time. He illustrated for, Astounding Science Fiction, Doc Savage Magazine, Unknown, Planet Stories and Fantastic Adventures. He worked for major pulp fiction publishing houses including Street and Smith Publications, Gnome Press and Fantasy Press. Cartier won the 1992 World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1996 and 2001, he was nominated for Retro Hugo Awards.
Edd became a judge of the Illustrators of the Future Contest in its inaugural year (1990) and remained so his entire life. “Being able to be a judge of the illustrators was a tremendous honor. I myself knew what it was to get into the field being a young artist.”
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Robert Castillo is a Storyboard Artist who lives in Jersey City and works in New York City. He is represented by Frameworks LLC.
Robert graduated with honors from The Art Institute of Boston and has a Masters Degree in Computer Arts from The School of Visual Arts. As a storyboard artist Robert has created boards for films including Lee Daniel's "Precious", the Christopher Reeve’s directed animation Everyone’s Hero, Queen Latifahs "The Cookout" and "Perfect Holiday" and the award winning cable television program The Sopranos. He has also done music videos for Alicia Keys, Ja Rule, Kid Rock, Lauren Hill and Don Omar, commercials for Phat Farm, Adidas, And 1, as well as promo work and music videos for MTV, Nickelodeon's Ironman, Fuse, VH1, Court TV and ESPN. Robert has done Concept Boards for shows like Lopez Tonight, Skins and Chopped.
Robert’s talent has been recognized with various awards, and honors including L. Ron Hubbard's Illustrators of the Future and The Student Academy Awards in 2004 for his short film S.P.I.C. The Storyboard of My Life which has Screened in 14 festivals including Cannes and The Museum of Modern Art. In 2005 S.P.I.C. had a special screening at TIME Magazine in NY and at Walt Disney Studios. Robert is an adjunct professor at William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ. Robert has also Lectured on The Art of Storyboards at NYU Tisch and Jersey City University.
Robert has given back by auctioning his artwork for The John Starks Foundation as well as Project Sunshine and The Tony Darrow foundation. He also volunteers his time with Ghetto Film School in the Bronx, NY, Mount Sinai Hospital and The Automotive High School of Brooklyn, NY. He is married to Karen Latney and has 4 dogs BooBoo, Xena, Missy & Mugwei. |
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Hal Clement (1922–2003) was born Harry Clement Stubbs in 1922 and earned degrees in astronomy, chemistry and education. He was a multiengine pilot in World War II, and by that time, he was already publishing stories in Astounding Science Fiction with his own brand of “hard” SF: a combination of gripping story with meticulously worked-out scientifi c extrapolation of a totally alien environment. He is best known for his novels Mission of Gravity, Iceworld and Needle. A lifelong science fiction enthusiast, Clement was a proud member of First Fandom. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1998 and became a WotF judge in 2001. Hal Clement passed away in 2003. "Writing a science fiction story is fun, not work . . . treat the whole thing as a game. You are painting a word picture (or a series of them—the frames in a movie). Your pigment is your vocabulary, your brushes are the rules of grammar and your model is the universe—the known (and thinkable, if you’re extrapolating) laws of Nature." — Hal Clement
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Vincent Di Fate has been cited by People Magazine as “One of the top illustrators of science fiction.” The many awards he has received for his paintings would attest to that including the Frank R. Paul Award for Outstanding Achievement in Science Fiction Illustration, the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist and the Chesley Award from the Association of Science Fiction/Fantasy Artists for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. He was also Guest of Honor at the 50th World Science Fiction Convention in 1992. His work has been exhibited at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C and the Kennedy Space Center.In addition to providing us with his own art, he has written numerous articles on the topic and published two major books: Di Fate’s Catalog of Science Fiction Hardware and the award winning Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art, in which he collects works from many of the modern masters and discusses the significance of each artist. He continues to lecture extensively about the methods, meaning and history of his craft and has been a consultant for MCA/Universal, 20th Century Fox and MGM/United Artists. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (State University of New York). He has been an Illustrators of the Future judge since 1996.
“By being the public dreamers for our species . . . we keep a vision of a better world and life acute in the universal consciousness. We point to the infinite potentials that lie within us and to the limitless frontiers that lie among the stars, and all the while we remind ourselves that as good as it gets, it could always be better.” —Vincent Di Fate, Illustrators of the Future Contest Judge
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