



L. Ron Hubbard also started Writers of the Future in 1984. It's a quarterly contest, no fee to enter, judged by serious, established, s-f writers. At the end of the four quarters, all the winning stories and usually a couple or so of the finalists, are gathered up and published. There's award money: $1,000 to the first place story, $750 to second, $500 to third. All the first place stories then compete against each other for an additional prize of $5,000. In addition, the published stories all get some reasonable word rate, although I don't recall what it is. All the winners and published finalists get to attend a week long writing workshop run by some pretty big names in the s-f community, are fed and feted, and there's a very fancy awards dinner.



I know all this because in 1994 I was a Writer of the Future. You won't have heard of me because I haven't published anything since, but quite a few well known writers got their start in WOTF.



My year the workshop and awards ceremony were held in Hollywood (the ABA convention was there that year also) and we were put up at the Celebrity Center, Scientology's private hotel.



It was very interesting and very creepy. We noticed that anytime more than two of us gathered together in any public part of the Center, all of a sudden one of the resident Scientology drones would materialize. We all came to the conclusion, separately from each other, that our rooms were bugged. If not, they were keeping VERY close track of us. We were also given a tour of their facilities, and there was a covert effort to convince us to sign up. Maybe it wasn't so covert as we could all see through it and basically laughed in their faces.



What was also bizarre and disturbing was the constant presence of Hubbard, huge portraits, frequent invocations of his name, as if he were still alive and might walk through the door at any minute.



To a great extent Scientology keeps the entire WOTF thing separate from the church. More than one of the contest judges has said they would not participate were they not convinced of the separation. It is clear that they (Scientology) would LOVE to have big name s-f writers on board, but I think what they don't get is that most s-f writers are very independent minded, and we are harder to herd than cats.



As I've mentioned, many s-f writers whose names you'd recognize if you happen to read the genre, got a start in WOTF. Many others submitted multiple times until they got published enough they were no longer eligible. The contest is only open to those with no or no more than a couple of professional publications. Having been a Writer of the Future gives a newbie credibility.



Anyway, that's my encounter with Scientology. The s-f writing community was quite small back in the day.L. Ron Hubbard also started Writers of the Future in 1984. It's a quarterly contest, no fee to enter, judged by serious, established, s-f writers. At the end of the four quarters, all the winning stories and usually a couple or so of the finalists, are gathered up and published. There's award money: $1,000 to the first place story, $750 to second, $500 to third. All the first place stories then compete against each other for an additional prize of $5,000. In addition, the published stories all get some reasonable word rate, although I don't recall what it is. All the winners and published finalists get to attend a week long writing workshop run by some pretty big names in the s-f community, are fed and feted, and there's a very fancy awards dinner.I know all this because in 1994 I was a Writer of the Future. You won't have heard of me because I haven't published anything since, but quite a few well known writers got their start in WOTF.My year the workshop and awards ceremony were held in Hollywood (the ABA convention was there that year also) and we were put up at the Celebrity Center, Scientology's private hotel.It was very interesting and very creepy. We noticed that anytime more than two of us gathered together in any public part of the Center, all of a sudden one of the resident Scientology drones would materialize. We all came to the conclusion, separately from each other, that our rooms were bugged. If not, they were keeping VERY close track of us. We were also given a tour of their facilities, and there was a covert effort to convince us to sign up.Maybe it wasn't so covert as we could all see through it and basically laughed in their faces.What was also bizarre and disturbing was the constant presence of Hubbard, huge portraits, frequent invocations of his name, as if he were still alive and might walk through the door at any minute.To a great extent Scientology keeps the entire WOTF thing separate from the church. More than one of the contest judges has said they would not participate were they not convinced of the separation. It is clear that they (Scientology) would LOVE to have big name s-f writers on board, but I think what they don't get is that most s-f writers are very independent minded, and we are harder to herd than cats.As I've mentioned, many s-f writers whose names you'd recognize if you happen to read the genre, got a start in WOTF. Many others submitted multiple times until they got published enough they were no longer eligible. The contest is only open to those with no or no more than a couple of professional publications. Having been a Writer of the Future gives a newbie credibility.Anyway, that's my encounter with Scientology.