50 Countries enter WOTF Competition!

One of the great things about fantasy literature is its diversity and its appeal across almost any age, gender or race. Well, this year, the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest for Speculative Fiction has announced that it has received entries from more than 50 Countries. From the United States to Sri Lanka, the 1st Quarter of the 2014 contest saw entrants even from non-English speaking countries.

The top five countries with the most amount of entrants for the 1st quarter of the contest, which ran from 1 October to 31 December, are as follows:

1) United States
2) Canada
3) United Kingdom (with the most coming from Oxford)
4) Australia
5) India

“The United States is always number one and this quarter it is followed by Canada, United Kingdom and Australia for the obvious English speaking reasons,” contest Director Joni Labaqui stated. “Our 5th place country this year was a surprise, India. In recent years we have seen a growing number of entrants from India and we have had more entrants from other smaller non-English speaking countries as well. A partial list includes: Armenia, Belgium, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Italy, Jamaica, Lithuania, Slovenia, Uganda and the UAE.”

Other notable aspects of contest entrants for the 1st quarter are that the majority were male, but not by a large margin, and the majority are students. “Our youngest entrant this quarter was 12 years old, from Iowa and our oldest was a gentleman from England who is 80 years old. We have no age restrictions at all,” Labaqui explained.

Now in its 30th year, the Writers of the Future Contest began in 1983 and attracts entries worldwide in science fiction and fantasy. Twelve quarterly winners receive prize monies and, along with selected finalists, are published in an annual anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future (Galaxy Press). The book is sold in bookstores and at Amazon.com and gives the winners the exposure that they need.

Inspired by multiple New York Times best-selling author L. Ron Hubbard, the merit-based Writers of the Future Contest was initiated by him to discover and encourage talented beginning writers of science fiction and fantasy, and thus launch careers. The idea has proved very successful. Hundreds of winners have had successful writing careers following their win and publication in the anthology, and to date has launched the careers of 12 New York Times bestsellers.

It’s worth mentioning that we’ve had one of our contributors feature in the anthology a few years ago and that Myke Cole & Patrick Rothfuss, two of our favourite authors, featured in the anthology and continue to have successful writing careers.

For more information on the contest visit http://www.writersofthefuture.com.

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