Last updated 13:34, Tuesday, 06 May 2008

I AM looking for potential science fiction or fantasy writers who may live in the local area. We are running a contest called L Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest to give new science fiction writers the chance to make it into the big time as writers.

Anything out there? Jupiter and its moons have long been a fascination of science fiction writers

The contest was started in America in 1984 by top science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, author of the best-selling Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth series, who wanted to encourage new writing talent and open up some of the many opportunities for them to make a career from SF writing. The contest has drawn many entries from all over the world.

Entrants have to submit a story of up to 10,000 words, or a tale of short novel length, less than 17,000. These entries are judged by a panel of top SF judges such as Algis Budrys, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Robert Silverberg, Kevin J Anderson, Orson Scott Card, Jerry Pournelle, Tim Powers and Andre Norton.

Each quarter there are cash prizes of £640, £480 and £320 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners and an annual grand prize of £2,500. All of the 12 yearly winners also get published in an anthology entitled L Ron Hubbard presents Writers of the Future, which is distributed internationally.

In the contests held so far, UK authors have done well and seven people from the UK have had their stories published including Stephen Baxter and Thomas Brennan.

If anyone would like to have a go at becoming a top science fiction or fantasy author, they should send a copy of this article, stating the name and date of the newspaper and a stamped, addressed envelope for a free entry form to; L Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest at the address below.

Andrea Grant-Webb
Contest co-ordinator
PO Box 218
East Grinstead
West Sussex RH19 4GH