Kirkland Resident to be Honored at Sci-Fi Writers of the Future Awards

Shannon Peavey will be honored at a ceremony in Los Angeles this weekend including a dozen of the most promising science fiction writers and competing for a $5,000 grand prize, but in many ways, Peavey has already won.

Peavey was flown to a week-long sci-fi conference, and will win at least $500 in the long running competition that L. Ron Hubbard started 30 years ago, the Writers of the Future contest. She will also have her winning entry published in the annual anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers and Illustrators of the Future, Volume 29 (Galaxy Press, 2013), to be released in May or June.

Galaxy Press, the publisher for Hubbard's works of fiction, oversees the contest that he started in 1983 (his estate still supports it), and the contest continues year round, with finalists announced each quarter. The contest is free for writers and now, illustrators, to enter, and people can enter every quarter--until they win.

Peavey, the oldest of three girls, said when she was young she mostly used her vivid imagination to terrify her siblings: telling them that she'd been replaced by an evil twin from an alternate dimension, or that eating crab apples gave a person magical powers. They have since forgiven her, according to her contest biography.

After receiving a degree in English from Mount Holyoke College, Peavey returned to the Pacific Northwest and began writing in earnest. She tries to bring the unique flavor of the west coast, its history and unexplored places, to her writing.

Peavey particularly credits Robin McKinley and Lloyd Alexander for instilling in her an appreciation for strong heroines, vivid new worlds, and beautiful words.

When not writing, Peavey works as a horse trainer and continually attempts mastery of the piano (so far, the piano is winning). Her Writers of the Future win is her first published work.

This Sunday, April 14, Peavey will join the other eleven winning writers and twelve illustrators from around the globe to be honored during the 29th Annual L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards at the famed Wilshire Ebell Theatre, on Sunday, April 14.

From the dozen finalists in each category, two grand prize winners will each receive $5,000, to be announced at the ceremony. Quarterly winners also receive cash prizes from $1,000 to $500. Their winning stories and illustrations will appear in the annual anthology L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers and Illustrators of the Future, Volume 29 (Galaxy Press, 2013).

Since its launch, 650 writers and illustrators have been recognized as winners of the contest, and 60 to 70% of winners go on to successful careers, according to a press release by Galaxy Press.

Past winners of the Writing Contest have published over 750 novels and 3,500 short stories and winners of the Illustrating Contest have had their art published in more than 500 books and magazines, with 4,500 illustrations, 350 comics and over 1.3 million art prints. 

Contest director Joni Labaqui said more than six million fiction and non-fiction manuscripts make the rounds annually, but only 2,500 new science fiction and fantasy titles are published each year, many of those from established authors.

“That’s why these Contests were created – because it’s so hard to get published and there are so many talented people who give up on their dreams to see their works in print,” Labaqui said.

Peavey is not the first Eastsider to make it to the big sci-fi dance; last year Corry L. Lee, of Redmond, was a winner.

--Information from Galaxy Press