The 30th Annual Writers of the Future awards ceremony was held on Sunday April 13, at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. The event had all the glamour and ritz of a major Hollywood movie premiere. And Nancy as one of the award presenters!
The Wilshire Ebell Theatre, which holds about 1200 people, was standing-room only. Afterwards, most of the folks from the theatre gathered in the ballrooms, art galleries and courtyard of the Ebell. At this gala reception, all the writers and illustrators signed copies of the 30th Edition of the Writers of the Future anthology.
There was a fantastic dinner followed by a red carpet entrance with buzz and media and a 3 hour gala event with musical and dance performances and black tie celebrations.
Speakers included people like Mark Leslie (writer and Director of Author Relations at Kobo), Nancy Kress (who presented the Writer’s Digest Award), Keynote Speaker Leland Melvin (Aerospace Engineer and NASA Astronaut) as well as so many amazing NYT Bestselling authors: Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason, Eric Flint, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Todd McCaffrey, Rebecca Moesta, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Tim Powers, Mike Resnick, Robert J. Sawyer and Dave Wolverton.
A Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Orson Scott Card, one of the judges of the Writers of the Future contest.
The Writers of the Future experience is produced by Author Services (the agency representing the literary, theatrical and musical works of L. Ron Hubbard) and Galaxy Press (publisher of Hubbard’s fiction). Established and sponsored by L. Ron Hubbard in 1983, the “Writers Award Contest” was a budding competition aimed at discovering, and eventually publishing, deserving amateur and aspiring writers. The field of speculative fiction and fantasy, was chosen not only for Mr. Hubbard’s love of and success within the genre—but for the freedom of imagination and expression it provided as what he described as the “herald of possibility.”
