Int'l Award-Winning Seattle Author Honored at Hollywood Gala

(Hollywood, CA) – Elise Stephens of Seattle was recently honored at the 35th Annual L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards Event at the prestigious Taglyan Cultural Complex in Hollywood, California as one of twelve winners in the Writers of the Future contest. The capacity crowd of 400 attendees celebrated the winners of both the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests and the release of the anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35, where the winning stories and art are published including Ms. Stephens' winning story, "Untrained Luck."

The Taglyan provided an elegant backdrop to the festive L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards Event which hosted celebrities and judges as well as speakers, winners and their families and guests. Video of the April 5th awards event can be viewed here,...

The annual event included a presentation by keynote speaker, Ed Hulse, author and renowned pop-culture historian, who talked about the Golden Age of Science Fiction and post World War II era being a veritable explosion in pulp magazines. Hulse said, “The Golden Age of Science Fiction isn’t a relic of the past. It has seeped into our popular culture in myriad ways. The Galactic Empires of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series were foremost in the mind of George Lucas when he conceived Star Wars, and Doc Smith’s Lensmen were among the influences of his Jedi knights. In the first film’s famous bar scene, he even lifted a sequence from L. Ron Hubbard’s story The Kingslayer virtually word for word. Van Vogt’s mutant Slans were forerunners of Marvel’s X-Men. Countless popular motion pictures and television shows have adapted classic Golden Age pulp yarns, officially and unofficially.”

Executive Director of Author Services, Inc. and the evening's emcee, Ms. Gunhild Jacobs, introduced Dr. Beatrice Kondo, member of the Board of Directors of The Heinlein Society and daughter of the late Writers of the Future judge, Dr. Yogi Kondo. She began her speech about the over four-decade friendship between Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard even quoting excerpts from personal letters. She spoke of their “common purpose to help their fellow writers, to pay it forward, to help fulfill human potential and expand our vision of the world as a whole.” She concluded by presenting a Letter of Recognition to L. Ron Hubbard and the Writers and Illustrators of the Future on the occasion of the contest's 35th anniversary.

Contest Director, Joni Labaqui and Founding Writers of the Future judge, Dr. Gregory Benford were presenters for the L. Ron Hubbard Lifetime Achievement Award which went to Founding Illustrators of the Future judge, Bob Eggleton. In Mr. Eggleton's 36-year career (and counting), he's created art in the genres of science-fiction, fantasy and horror winning numerous awards including 9 Hugo awards, 12 Chesley awards, and as he puts it, “I'm still doing it 36 years later and to give you some perspective on that I have been a [Illustrators of the Future] judge for 32 years!” He continued by thanking L. Ron Hubbard quoting him, “A culture is as rich and capable of surviving as it has imaginative artists” and concluded by saying, “Don't try be the best there is. Be the best you can be!”

The highlight of the ceremony was the announcement of the year’s two Grand Prize winners who each received $5,000 with the Illustrators of the Future Grand Prize and The Golden Brush Award trophy going to Ms. Aliya Chen of Fair Oaks, California and the Writers of the Future Grand Prize and The Golden Pen Award trophy awarded to Mr. Andrew Dykstal of Arlington, Virginia. Quarterly winners also receive cash prizes from $1,000 to $500. Their winning stories and illustrations are published in the annual anthology L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35 (Galaxy Press, April 2019).

Some of the participants in the ceremony included best-selling authors Kevin J. Anderson (Dune prequel series), Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), Eric Flint (1632), Larry Niven (Ringworld), Tim Powers (On Stranger Tides, which Pirates of the Caribbean IV was based on), David Farland (Runelords) and Robert J. Sawyer, referred to as Canada’s Dean of Science Fiction; as well as award winning artists Bob Eggleton (12 Chesley Awards and 9 Hugo Awards), Larry Elmore (Dungeons & Dragons book covers), Rob Prior (art for Spawn, Heavy Metal comics and Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Echo Chernik (Illustrations for Name of the Wind Art Deck by Patrick Rothfuss) all of whom are contest judges and served as award presenters.

Elise Stephens was raised on a steady diet of fairy tales and Disney musicals. Early involvement in the theater left Elise with a taste for dramatic, high-stakes adventure while frequent international travel gave her an awe and respect for foreign cultures. When she fell in love with the intricate plots and strange worlds of science fiction and fantasy novels, her fate was sealed for the writing life. She graduated with a creative writing degree from the University of Washington where she was awarded the Eugene Van Buren Prize for Fiction. She attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp in 2014.

Through her fiction, Elise strives to discover beauty within brokenness and unlock healing after devastating loss. She intends for her stories to offer light and strength for facing the darkness and disappointments of this world. Becoming a mother five years ago added a ferocious affection to her storytelling, and themes of self-sacrifice, legacy, and family ties currently permeate her work.

Elise lives in Seattle with her amazing husband and two rambunctious kiddos in a house with large windows for letting in the sunlight that she constantly craves, both literally and metaphorically.

Throughout the Contests’ 35-year history, over 750 writers and illustrators have been recognized as winners. “What’s amazing to me is that a good 60 to 70% of winners go on to successful careers,” says New York Times’ best-selling author Anderson. “You could call it ‘The American Idol’ for writers—long before there ever was such a show.”

The Writers of the Future writing contest (www.writersofthefuture.com) was initiated by L. Ron Hubbard in 1983 to provide “a means for new and budding writers to have a chance for their creative efforts to be seen and acknowledged.” Based on its success, its sister contest, Illustrators of the Future was created five years later to provide that same opportunity for the aspiring artist.

The intensive mentoring process has proven very successful. The 416 past winners of the Writing Contest have published 1,150 novels and nearly 4,500 short stories. They have produced 32 New York Times bestsellers and their works have sold over 60 million copies.

The 346 past winners of the Illustrating Contest have produced over 6,000 illustrations, 360 comic books, graced 624 books and albums with their art and visually contributed to 68 TV shows and 40 major movies.

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

For more information about author and Writers of the Future winner, go to www.EliseStephens.com

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