27th Annual Writers and Illustrators of the Future
Workshops and Awards Celebration: Day 4

Welcome to Day 4 of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers and Illustrators of the Future Workshop week.

Things were quiet in the lobby of the Hotel Roosevelt. Here and there, writers sat in plush leather chairs in islands of tranquility they’d fashioned for themselves, tapping out their 24 hour stories. I was loathe to interrupt them, but I happened to meet Keffy R.M. Kehrli on his way to grab some breakfast, so I asked him how it was going. He’d made some progress, but the story he’d initially started to write had quickly blown up to novel-size, so he’d set it aside for later and started something new. I can certainly empathize. With so many creative people in one place, it’s easy to get carried away!


Keffy Kehrli

Richard Johnson

Patty Jansen

Not wanting to disturb the writers further, I visited the illustrator’s workshop. I was interested to see how Cliff Nielsen’s fortune cookie exercise turned out. Joey Jordan’s fortune yesterday was “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. One of her thumbnails depicted a line of invading soldiers in body armour, marching towards a town. A single soldier has broken formation, and has his hand on his pistol, sheltering a defenseless father and his daughter. A more light-hearted thumbnail turned “Do unto others…” into “Give a friend a hand” and depicted two warriors, one of them unarmed, facing down a dragon. The man with a sword tosses a battle axe, complete with severed arm, to the other one. These and some of her other ideas convinced Stephen Hickman that Joey might also have a career as a writer ahead of her!



Following the exercise, Hugo awarding winning master illustrator Vincent Di Fate delved into the history of science fiction illustration, then covered topics like storyboarding and matte painting. Illustrator Nico Photos marvelled at the scale of some of the mattes used for classic movies, wishing for the opportunity to see one up close.


Vincent De Fate

At lunch, winners from previous years began to arrive at the hotel. I had lunch with Brad Torgersen (vol 26), Dave Sakmyster (vol 22), and Laurie Tom (vol 26). Brad talked a little about his experience publishing work at Analog and winning the AnLab award. Dave mentioned that he’d recently sold his novel “The Pharos Objective” to Variance, while Laurie told us that she’d just completed the first draft of the novelization of her L. Ron Hubbard Gold Award winning short story “Living Rooms”.  Looks like the WotF workshop is only the beginning!


Jordan Lapp, Laurie Tom and Brad Torgersen

After lunch, it was back to the illustrators’ workshop where instructor Stephen Hickman covered various artistic techniques he’d used to create some of his masterpieces, covering each step with an extensive collection of slides.



Five o’clock rolled around all too soon, and the writers began to trickle in with their stories in hand. Brennan Harvey turned in a succinct 2400 word tale, while Adam Perin wrote a stunning 6800 word monster.  Once all the stories were turned in, Tim and Kathy chose Van Aaron Hughes, Keffy R.M. Kehrli, and Patty Jansen’s stories to be critiqued. This is a highly personal and private process, so I won’t be blogging about it, but I can say that many, many writers in past volumes have gone on to sell their 24 hour stories to some of the finest markets in the genre.

After the stories were distributed, Tim and K.D. said a few words, then sent the male writers and illustrators off to their tux-fitting, and the women to have their dresses sized.


Ben Mann

Van Aaron Hughes

Jeffrey Lyman

Adam Perin

We had time to squeeze in a quick dinner, and then it was back to Author Services for a panel starring newly-arrived judges Eric Flint, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Kevin J. Anderson. They talked at length about the new self-publishing phenomenon in the eBook market and why it means different things for writers who have won a major award than for the average newbie. 


Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Eric Flint and Kevin J. Anderson

After the workshop ended, all of the judges stayed around to meet with the writers and illustrators one-on-one…often seeking out a particular writer whose story they’d read and loved when they’d judged it in their quarter. All of the writers handled this with aplomb, but on the way back to the hotel they were all abuzz at the praise they’d received from their heroes.

Tomorrow morning we head off to Delta Printing for a tour of the facility where the 27th Volume of
L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future is being printed. The writers can't wait to see their book come off the presses!

—Jordan Lapp, your friendly blogger and 2009 Writers of the Future Winner

On May 15th, 2011 at 6:30pm, watch the live Achievement Awards Celebration at www.writersofthefuture.com.