Some of you may have heard the news already.
The results are in for the 1st Quarter Writers of the Future competition and my short story, Coward’s Steel, won third prize.
This is not your average neighborhood speculative fiction contest.
I was told that there were more than one thousand SF entrants for 1st Quarter, from all over the English-speaking world. Third prize netted me $500 in cash, a slick-looking trophy, participation in a week-long expenses-paid writers’ workshop in California and — this is the one I like — publication in the 26th annual edition of the Writers’ of the Future XXVI anthology, summer 2010.
The competition is administered by Author Services, an offshoot of the Hubbard Foundation. Joni Lebaqui, program administrator, and the folks at Author Services are a swell bunch.
Joni called Thursday morning to tell me I had won and I babbled for ten or fifteen minutes, while she listened. Thanks for your patience and understanding, Joni.
First place went to Tom Crosshill of New York for Seeing Double and second place went to Alex Black of Oregon for Lisa with Child. Winners of the competition have gone on to publish some two hundred fifty novels and two thousand five-hundred short stories.
Check it out at Writers of the Future. It is well worth the effort of entering.
BTW, the win marks my second professional-rates sale. The first was At Both Ends, which is set to appear soon at Flash Fiction Online. I’m please to say that the two sales meet one of my goals for the year!
Congratulations, KC. You certainly do deserve to be feeling like James Cagney today. Well done!
ps. I have spent the past week trying to overcome my reluctance to technology and have set up a blog. Hopefully clicking on my name takes you to it and not my profile.
Congratulations, KC!
Thank you, Alan. Great start on your blog. 😉
Sandra, thank you so much.
Hi congratulations on winning in the WOTF and making a professional sales! Very nice. I am looking forward to reading your work and meeting you at the workshop. I’ve touched base with Tom, and he sounds like a good guy. So, it should be a good time in California.
Again, congrats!
Alex Black
Exchanging stories would be fun if possible. I took the pregnant robot route with mine. I’m still surprised that it worked.
😉 again, congrats. I can definitely sympathize with the “babbling to Joni” reaction – mine was very similar. A good kind of babbling, I think!
And yes, should be a great time in CA. Either of you going to worldcon? Or Readercon?
I’m headed to Kansas in four weeks for Jim Gunn’s summer workshop — two weeks, and that’s all the traveling I can afford this year. Montreal is a great city to visit, though. Been there twice for ten-day trips.
I don’t know about next year. We’ll have to see where NASFiC is, since WorldCon will be in Australia. Of course, I’ve got a week-long commitment in August 2010.
In Los Angeles. 😉
Awesome!
Thanks, Alex. You need to get a story ready for 3rd Quarter; deadline is June 30.
I know a number of people who’ve done the Gunn workshop and they all speak highly of it – you’ll have a blast! Bring back some crumbs of wisdom, please 🙂
I never mess with crumbs, Tom. I always go for the croutons. 😉
I’ve actually never been to a Con, or a writer’s workshop for that matter. I’ll have to start attending.
I said this in e-mail already, but well done. Well done indeed. Hope the 2010 gala is as fun-filled as everyone says it is.
Now, 3 more chances for some of the rest of us to (hopefully) join you!
BRAVO!
That is so exciting, K.C. Congratulations!!!
Thank you, Erin. The June 30 deadline is coming up for 2nd Quarter; you should enter.