Bill Katz

For six consecutive years, Wordos writing workshop in Eugene has sent one of their own to the Writers of the Future (WotF) workshop. To put this in context, WotF receives well over 10,000 entries per year -- the contest doesn't release the exact numbers -- and Wordos consistently gets at least one of the fifteen or so winning entries. I was in the Portland area last week for OSCON 2005 and made the trek down to see what kind of magic Wordos was using.

I was told it was "slow" in the summer, but when I arrived at Tsunami Books, there were two dozen people sitting around tables arranged in a "T." Nina Kiriki Hoffman served as secretary and took notes while Wordos members proudly noted their recent rejections. At Wordos, rejections are nothing to be ashamed about -- it's part of being an active writer and shows you are producing and submitting work. A rejection earns you a candy and a round of applause.

In honor of my upcoming book signings in Richmond, I thought I'd finally write a blog entry on the Writers of the Future (WotF) contest and what it was like to attend the WotF workshops. Last August, my short story The Plastic Soul of a Note won grand prize in the 20th Writers of the Future Contest.

For those not familiar with it, WotF is the premiere contest for aspiring science fiction & fantasy writers.¹ Usually, whenever someone uses the word premiere, I wonder if it's just hyperbole, but in this case I've got supporting evidence. Exhibit number 1: there's no entry fee and an amazing collection of authors judge your work. My second quarter entry was judged by Algis Budrys, Yoji Kondo, Andre Norton, Jerry Pournelle and K.D. Wentworth. I don't know who awarded my grand prize from the four first place winners, but with judges like Anne McCaffrey, Kevin J Anderson, Frederick Pohl, Tim Powers, Robert Silverberg, and Gregory Benford, I felt pretty good :) Exhibit number 2: the prizes include airfare and limo ride to Hollywood, room at a posh hotel, week-long workshop run by luminaries in the SF&F world, rooftop dinner, black-tie gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel, book signing at Borders Hollywood, a framed illustration inspired by your story, and massive acrylic trophies with embedded silver & gold pens. And a T-shirt. Anne McCaffrey threw in pens from her self-designed home Dragonhold-Underhill. No contest has a finer booty. (arrrr)

I read Chris Anderson's the Long Tail a few months ago and kept nodding in agreement as I read point after point.¹ If you haven't read it, take a look.² The Long Tail refers to the retail chart of sales vs. popularity, where the most popular titles sell in huge numbers and the sales figure drops asymptotically as you move out to the less popular items. Whereas a physical bookstore like Barnes & Noble might stock 130,000 books, a centralized virtual bookstore like Amazon can hold a couple million books. The less popular titles, those works not carried by B&N, constitute the long tail.