RESIDENT ILLUSTRATOR FROM CHICAGO CAPTURES INTERNATIONAL GRAND PRIZE AT FESTIVE HOLLYWOOD GALA

Aldo Katayanagi from Chicago, Illinois was honored Sunday night, April 14, at the 29^th Annual L. Ron Hubbard Achievement awards at the prestigious Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

The annual event celebrated the winners in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests (www.writersofthefuture.com) before a packed hall of over 1,100 guests and thousands more who were logged on to watch the event as it streamed live. The night’s keynote speaker was Mr. Brett Kennedy, Supervisor of the Robotic Vehicles and Manipulators Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena who spoke on the bleeding edge of mobile robotic applications, having worked the past 15 years at JPL on diverse systems, the most immediate being the Robotic Arm aboard the Mars Curiosity Rover. He addressed writers and artists of the past who provided the inspiration for scientists such as him, and quoted L. Ron Hubbard from the opening line of his gritty space travel story written in the nascent days of science fiction, “Space is deep, Man is small, and Time is his relentless enemy.” He concluded his speech by asking the evening’s winners, “So, tell us, writers and artists of the future—what are we going to do next? What will motivate our Will and our Urgency? Is it something further, different, or more? And how will finding it show us ourselves? The future is in your minds and in your hands.”

The event celebrated the annual winners in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests, where Aldo won the international grand prize making it further than some several thousand others who entered the international competition, and where he saw his illustration published in the bestselling Science Fiction anthology series – L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXIX now available online at Amazon.com and BN.com and soon to be available in print wherever books are sold.

Born to two creative professionals, Aldo Katayanagi was encouraged from a young age to study medicine. At age five he watched an anime called Akira, and it affected him greatly. Aldo didn’t consider the possibility of a career in art until he stumbled across various online art forums near the end of high school. He then rediscovered his love for sci-fi and comics and moved to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts, where he graduated. Aldo is at peace with his decision to study art instead of medicine.

Though Aldo is primarily a digital artist, his time spent oil painting in college was an invaluable experience and still influences the techniques he uses today.

Aldo currently lives in Chicago, where his art often combines lighthearted and disconcerting elements that play off and redefine one another. His work has been exhibited at the Society of Illustrators.

You can visit his website at aldo-art.com.

With writers and illustrators coming from all walks of life, the winners attended a week long workshop taught by contest judges —including New York Times bestselling authors Dave Wolverton (Runelord series) and Kevin J. Anderson (Dune series), World Fantasy Award winner Tim Powers (On Stranger Tides, adapted as the 4^th Pirates of the Caribbean film), multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner Robert J. Sawyer (Flash Forward and The WWW Trilogy), Hugo and Nebula award winning author Larry Niven (the Ringworld series), and internationally acclaimed artists, Stephen Hickman (over 350 book and magazine covers), and Cliff Nielsen (cover artist for Chronicles of Narnia)—each one an experienced professional in the field providing sound advice based on hard-won experience.

Each writing and illustrating contest winner was presented their trophy by contest judges at the ceremony and combined cash prizes and royalties of over $30,000, and their story with artwork published in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Volume XXIX.

The Writers of the Future writing contest (www.writersofthefuture.com) was initiated by L. Ron Hubbard in 1983 to provide a means for aspiring writers to get that much-needed break. Due to the success of the Writing Contest, the companion Illustrators of the Future Contest was created in 1988.

The intensive mentoring process has proven very successful. The 348 past winners of the Writing Contest have published 838 novels and nearly 4,000 short stories. They have produced 27 New York Times bestsellers and their works have sold over 50 million copies.

The 276 past winners of the Illustrating Contest have produced over 4,500 illustrations, 356 comic books, graced 594 books and albums with their art and visually contributed to 36 TV shows and 46 major movies.

For more information and to see the awards ceremony online, go to www.writersofthefuture.com