HOLLYWOOD – Senoia, Georgia writer Lauren McGuire is a winner within the L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest and was honored together with eleven different writers and eleven artists on the Taglyan Advanced in Hollywood, California on April tenth. Her story, “Karma Birds,” is revealed together with the opposite writers’ and illustrators’ tales and artwork within the worldwide bestselling anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Quantity 41 which was formally launched on April twenty second 2025.
Lauren McGuire lives in a small southern city the place one can’t throw a rock with out hitting a church. Satirically, the city is funded by zombies. Rising up as a military brat, she traveled all around the world together with a stint within the Center East which instilled a deep curiosity for different cultures and religions. She started writing in 2016 as a approach of processing a chaotic cultural panorama and has since written six full manuscripts and several other quick tales. When not wrangling a household of 5 or coaching for half-marathons, she writes about house and monsters.
She is an energetic member of the Atlanta Writing Membership and their 2020 winner for the Terry Kay prize for brief fiction in addition to a 2023 runner up for the Natasha Trethewey Prize for Poetry. She obtained two honorable mentions for the Writers of the Future contest earlier than turning into a finalist. “Karma Birds” is her first skilled sale.
Lauren’s story “Karma Birds” was impressed by a query—what wouldn’t it take for humanity to decide on kindness? What if morality stood exterior the purview of faith or legislation and have become as an alternative a mandate from nature? “Karma Birds” imagines morality, not a lot as a alternative, however as a mechanism for survival.
The Contest, one of the prestigious writing and illustrating competitions on the planet, is presently in its forty second 12 months and is judged by a number of the premier names in speculative fiction.
The Writers of the Future Contest judges embrace, Tim Powers (writer of On Stranger Tides), Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert (Dune prequel collection), Robert J. Sawyer (The Oppenheimer Different), Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn collection, The Stormlight Archive), Larry Niven (Ringworld), Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Sport), Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Demise), Hugh Howey (Wool), and Katherine Kurtz (Deryni collection) to call just a few. The Illustrators of the Future Contest judges embrace, Bob Eggleton (11 Chesley Awards and 9 Hugo Awards), Larry Elmore (Dungeons & Dragons ebook covers), Echo Chernik (graphic designs for main firms together with Celestial Seasonings tea packaging), Rob Prior (artwork for Spawn, Heavy Metallic comics and Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ciruelo (Eragon Coloring E-book).
Following the 1982 launch of his internationally acclaimed bestselling science fiction novel, Battlefield Earth, written in celebration of fifty years as an expert author, L. Ron Hubbard created the Writers of the Future (writersofthefuture.com) in 1983 to offer a method for aspiring writers of speculative fiction to get that much-needed break. As a result of success of the Writers of the Future Contest, the companion Illustrators of the Future Contest was inaugurated 5 years later.Within the 41 years of the Writers of the Future Contest, there have been 571 winners and revealed finalists. The previous winners of the Writing Contest have revealed 2,000 novels and practically 6,300 quick tales. They’ve produced 36 New York Occasions bestsellers, and their works have offered over 60 million copies.
Within the 36 years of the Illustrators of the Future Contest, there have been 418 winners. The previous winners of the Illustrating Contest have produced over 6,800 illustrations, 390 comedian books, graced 700 books and albums with their artwork, and visually contributed to 68 tv reveals and 40 main motion pictures.
The Writers of the Future Award is the style’s most prestigious award of its sort and has now develop into the most important, most profitable, and demonstrably most influential automobile for budding inventive expertise on the planet of speculative fiction. Since its inception, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests have produced 41 anthology volumes and awarded upwards of $1 million in money prizes and royalties.
For extra details about the Contests, go to www.WritersoftheFuture.com.
