I’m very pleased to make the “Big Announcement” that I’d promised about my writing. And the announcement is bigger than I’d even hoped! I’m please to be able to tell you that I’ve just won first place in the quarterly Writers of the Future contest.

The Writers of the Future contest is open to new and amateur short story writers in science fiction or fantasy. Submissions are blind judged by some of the top writers in the field, including Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Robert J. Sawyer, Jerry Pournelle, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, and Larry Niven.

My first place finish means a cash prize, publication in the annual Writers of the Future Anthology (in this case, Volume 23), a trip to a week-long writer’s workshop run by some of the contest’s judges, and a gala awards dinner. One of the year’s four first place stories will be chosen the Grand Prize winner at the dinner and its author will receive an additional $5,000 US in prize money.

The contest organizer has asked that I not reveal the name of the story yet, so you’ll have to wait and find out!

And don’t worry; I won’t let this win go to my head. I’ve already been taken down a couple of pegs since I found out yesterday. First, this morning I got a rejection letter from the British magazine, Interzone, for another story I’d submitted there. And second, when I told my dad I’d won a contest for a piece of my writing he said: “Then why are you so bad at Scrabble?” 🙂

– S.