Amit Dutta of Wellington, New Zealand and a De La Salle College graduate was honored Sunday night, April 12, at the 31st Annual L. Ron Hubbard Achievement awards at the prestigious Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, California. This year also marks the silver anniversary for the Illustrators of the Future Contest as it celebrates 25 years of recognizing the work of aspiring artists, many of whom have since gone on to successful careers in the field of visual arts.
The annual event celebrated the winners in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests (www.writersofthefuture.com) before a packed hall of over 1,000 guests and hundreds more from around the world who were logged on to watch the event as it streamed live. The night’s keynote speaker was Mr. William Pomerantz, Vice President Special Projects Virgin Galactic, who after talking about the dreams as a youth of working in a spaceship factory, and then later in life being told that his dreams were impossible stated, “I owe a huge debt to you and to those who have come before you. It was through science fiction that I learned that optimism, and through science fiction that I reclaimed it rather than falling victim to that jaded skepticism of our modern world.” He concluded by congratulating all the evening’s Contest winners.
The event celebrated the annual winners in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests, where Amit was one of the twelve illustrator winners making it further than some several thousand others who entered the international competition, and where he saw his illustration published in the bestselling Science Fiction anthology series – L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 31 now available online at Amazon.com, Kobo.com and BN.com and soon to be available in print wherever books are sold.
Amit Dutta discovered the creative urge as a wee entity growing up in the African nation of Malawi. Science fiction and fantasy literature were the first to capture his imagination. Since nobody he asked seemed to think that art could actually be a career, he trotted off to university in Canada and focused on Astrophysics. It was very sci-fi, after all.
A series of events, otherwise known as life, left Amit entangled in what might loosely be called “a career in IT.” It led to him wondering where he had misplaced 12 of his years. They weren't in the fridge, and he dared not look under the bed. Amit moved to New Zealand where the slumbering creative phoenix finally erupted into the bleary-eyed, caffeine-fueled, solitary autodidactic artist he has become. Over three years he obsessively developed his skills and successfully destroyed his social life.
He quit his daily grazing at the cubicle farm in early 2015 to dedicate more time to his art. The automated mortgage payment glares at him in outright suspicion. Amit currently hermits himself in a remote bush valley north of Wellington. He feeds cat food to the family of eels living under the ford across the river. The cat isn't impressed.
With writers and illustrators coming from all walks of life, the winners attended a week long workshop taught by contest judges — including New York Times bestselling authors David Farland (Runelord series) and Kevin J. Anderson (Dune series), World Fantasy Award winner Tim Powers (On Stranger Tides, adapted as the 4th Pirates of the Caribbean film), multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner Orson Scott Card (Enders Game), multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner Robert J. Sawyer (Flash Forward and The WWW Trilogy), Hugo and Nebula award winning author Larry Niven (the Ringworld series), and internationally acclaimed artists, Cliff Nielsen (cover artist for Chronicles of Narnia), Dave Dorman (Star Wars character designs) and Larry Elmore (Dungeons & Dragons art design)—each one an experienced professional in the field providing sound advice based on hard-won experience.
Each writing and illustrating contest winner was presented their trophy by contest judges at the ceremony and combined cash prizes and royalties of over $30,000, and their story with artwork published in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Volume 31.
The Writers of the Future writing contest (www.writersofthefuture.com) was initiated by L. Ron Hubbard in 1983 to provide a means for aspiring writers to get that much-needed break. Due to the success of the Writing Contest, the companion Illustrators of the Future Contest was created in 1988.
The intensive mentoring process has proven very successful. The 368 past winners of the Writing Contest have published 838 novels and nearly 4,000 short stories. They have produced 27 New York Times bestsellers and their works have sold over 50 million copies.
The 298 past winners of the Illustrating Contest have produced over 4,500 illustrations, 356 comic books, graced 594 books and albums with their art and visually contributed to 36 TV shows and 46 major movies.
For more information and to see the awards ceremony online, go to www.writersofthefuture.com