By Shanice Punnett
Twelve winning writers and 12 illustrators from around the globe — including Seonhee Lim of Long Island City — will be honored April 13 during the 30th annual L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards.
The event will be held at the famed Wilshire Ebell Theatre at 6:30 p.m. This year also marks the silver anniversary for the Illustrators of the Future Contest, where its first 25 years will be celebrated.
By combining her love for fantasy adventure books and games with comic books, Lim created fantasy art. Currently, she works as a freelance illustrator in New York, telling stories with drawings and paintings.
Throughout the contest’s 30-year history, more than 650 writers have been recognized as winners.
“What’s amazing to me is that a good 60 to 70 percent of winners go on to successful careers,” says New York Times best selling author Kevin J. Anderson. “You could call it the ‘American Idol’ for writers — long before there ever was such a show.”
Participating in the ceremony will be authors Anderson (the “Dune” prequels), Orson Scott Card (“Ender’s Game”), Larry Niven (“Ringworld”), Jerry Pournelle (“A Mote in God’s Eye”), Tim Powers (“On Stranger Tides”) and Robert Sawyer, known as Canada’s dean of science fiction.
Also attending are award-winning artists Cliff Nielsen (“The Chronicles of Narnia” book covers,) Larry Elmore (“Dungeons & Dragons” book covers) and Steven Hickman, who will all be presenting.
The highlight of the ceremony will be the announcement of the year’s two grand prize winners, who will each receive $5,000. Quarterly winners also receive cash prizes ranging from $500 to $1,000. Their winning stories will be published in the annual anthology “L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers and Illustrators of the Future, Volume 30.”
The “Writers of the Future” writing contest was initiated by Hubbard in 1983 to provide a means for inspiring writers to get that much-needed break.
Hubbard, born in 1911, was a humanitarian, author and founder of the Church of Scientology. He died in 1986 in California.
Due to the contest’s success, the sister contest, Illustrators of the Future, was created five years later to provide that same opportunity for aspiring artists.
More than 300 past winners of the writing contest have published 838 novels and nearly 4,000 short stories. Their works have sold more than 50 million copies.
Also, more than 200 past winners of the illustrating contest have produced more than 4,500 illustrations and more than 300 comic books. They have also contributed to TV shows and major movies.
For more information, contact mediarelationscarmen@gmail.com or visit writersofthefuture.com or facebook.com/WritersAndIllustratorsOfTheFuture.
To see the awards ceremony online, visit youtube.com/writersofthefuture.
