Looking back at 2023 for Sci Fi and Fantasy Art from Writers & Illustrators of the Future Winners and Judges

It was a big year for Writers and Illustrators of the Future judges, winners, and entrants and books released in 2023. While this list includes what we collected from judges and winners in a very short time, it gives you an idea of what these fine folks have been up to in the last year alone. We know there is more, and we apologize if we missed you. Please let us know in the comments if you want something added to the list.

Judges

• Bob Eggleton’s (judge) illustrated edition of King Kong by Easton Press was published for the 90th anniversary of Kong (1933).
• Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (judges) won a Dragon Award for Best Comic Book or Graphic Novel for their Dune: House Harkonnen. The graphic novel Dune Book 1 made the BookAuthority.org list of 100 Best Graphic Novel Books of All Time. They also released their novel, Princess of Dune. Kevin released Bat’s and the Belfry, his ninth Dan Shambles story.
• Nina Kiriki Hoffman (judge) sold several stories to Pulphouse Fiction Magazine and Fantasy & Science Fiction.
• Todd McCaffrey (judge) released “Jupiter Game” and finished writing the eight books of his L.A. Witch series.
• Nnedi Okorafor (judge) had a New York Times bestseller this year with her novel Akata Woman. The book also won the World Science Fiction Society’s Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.
• Tim Powers (judge) released his novel My Bother’s Keeper with Baen Books.
• Brandon Sanderson (judge) is on fire. He spent much of 2023 fulfilling his famous Kickstarter campaign. He released a whopping five books and expanded his company Dragonsteel, along with his online activities. Brandon’s accomplishments for the year literally fill a blog post of their own.
• Dan dos Santos (judge) completed the massive undertaking of creating over 135 original art oil paintings for Marvel’s Masterpieces.
• Robert J. Sawyer (judge) was Guest of Honor at the 2023 World Science Fiction convention held in Chengdu, China. His 25th novel, The Downloaded, debuted as an Audible Original starring Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser. In April, he was awarded the L. Ron Hubbard Lifetime Achievement Award.

Alumni

• Desmond Astaire (Vol. 38) released a novel Paranom, and five short stories came out in anthologies / magazines.
• Scott T. Barnes (Vol. 28) edited Cosmic Muse, which also featured his short story, “A Galaxy of Cranks.”
• Zack Be (Vol. 36) published “The Visions Are Free After Exit 73” in Asimov’s Science Fiction, “Trust Fall” in Analog, and he was the editor of Inner Workings: A Calendar of Fools anthology featuring short stories by 16 Writers of the Future winners.
• F.J. Bergmann (Vol. 36) published her short story “In the Cards” in Inner Workings, “Olympian” in Pulp Literature 38, “The Sport of Snails” in Simultaneous Times, and over two dozen poems.
• Lazarus Black (Vol. 38) released his first novel, The True Dragon of Atlanta. His short story “Agents Provocateur” appeared in The Reinvented Detective.
• Bruce Brenneise (Vol. 34) attended fourteen conventions this past year selling his art, including in Toronto and Abu Dhabi.
• Carrie Callahan (Vol. 35) made finalist for the Baen Adventure Fantasy Award for her story “A Tale of Three Dragons” and “Boulder Choke” accepted to the A Bit of Luck anthology.
• Zach Chapman (Vol. 31) wrote two comic books, House of Blood and A Haunting on Mars, which released this past year.
• Andy Dibble (Vol. 35) published “Every Me Is Someone Else” in Diabolical Plots, “The Baptismal Status of Persons Wetted by the Sprinkler Deluge” in Mysterion, “Render Unto Jesus” in Sci Phi Journal, and “Pro-Vote” in Inner Workings.
• James Dorr (Vol. 8) has a new book set to be released by Alien Buddha Press on January 8 called Avoid Seeing a Mouse, and Other Tales of the Real and Surreal.
• David A. Elsensohn (Vol. 36) got a western horror story accepted into the Along Harrowed Trails anthology and was featured in Inner Workings.
• Kirbi Fagan (Vol. 30) illustrated the children’s book A Horse Named Sky and it has since hit the New York Times bestseller list.
• David Hankins (Vol. 39) novelized his winning short story “Death and the Taxman.” He and his Vol. 39 illustrator, Sarah Morrison, teamed up and published the book with a successful Kickstarter campaign. His story “A Properly Spiced Gingerbread” won the Critter’s Readers Poll for Best Magical Realism.
• John Haas (Vol. 35) released the second novel in his Book of Ancient Evil Series through WordFire Press and signed the contract for his third.
• N.V. Haskell (Vol. 38) published her own collection of fantasy stories in Temporary Tales of Magic and Hope. She had a total of eight short story sales six publications and signed a three-book contract.
• Storm Humbert (Vol. 36) published “Carrion” in Galaxy’s Edge, “Master Brahms” in The Science Fiction Tarot, “Magic Hands” in Of Wizards and Wolves, “The Love Game” in the A Roll of the Dice anthology, “Stolen Sky” was reprinted in Cast of Wonders, and “Teach Them to Yearn” was published in the Inner Workings anthology.
• Ken Liu (Vol. 19) released Speaking Bones, Book Four of the Dandelion Dynasty.
• Michael Michera (Vol. 33) served as concept designer for the feature film, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and the video game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
• Wulf Moon (Vol. 35) won the Critters Annual Readers Poll in multiple categories for The Illustrated Super Secrets of Writing, Volume 1: Best Author, Best Nonfiction book, and Best Writers’ Research / Information / News Source. He did a successful Kickstarter for his book How to Write a Howling Good Story. Upon release of the book, he earned #1 bestseller in Creative Writing books and #1 in Fiction Writing books.
• T.R. Napper (Vol. 31) took home Australia’s Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel award for 36 Streets.
• Leah Ning (Vol. 36) became the managing editor at Apex Book Company, and had six new stories published!
• Steve Pantazis (Vol. 31) published the first three books of his epic fantasy series, The Light of Darkness.
• Dustin Panzino (Vol. 27) won Best in Show at this year’s Gen Con.
• Ozzie Rodriguez (Vol. 22) completed the 2nd issue in his independent comic book series, Icky.
• Elise Stephens (Vol. 35) published two short stories, “Common Speech” in Escape Pod, and “Two-Tone” in Stupefying Stories.
• Mike Jack Stoumbos (Vol. 38) edited and illustrated the anthology Murderbirds, released a new military SF novel Defenders Rise, and has had a number of new shorter works released, including a novelette in The Phoenix Initiative: First Missions and a stand-alone novella Murder on the Barge Inn.
• Rebecca E. Treasure (Vol. 38) is now managing editor at Apex Magazine, and had eight new short fiction publications this year.
• Mike Wood (Vol. 25) released his novel The Oneiromancer of Mars in his Martian Dream Series, and sold his fourth short story to Analog Magazine.
• Melissa Yuan-Innes (Vol. 15) won an Aurora Award for Best Poem/Song for “Rapunzel in the Desert” as published in On Spec Magazine, Issue 122.

Collections

• Galaxy’s Edge published several of our winners in their last magazine issue #62: Kary English (Vol. 31), Auston Habershaw (Vol. 31), Storm Humbert (Vol. 36), Steven Lawson (Vol. 33), Samantha Murray (Vol. 31), T.R. Napper (Vol. 31), Alan Smale (Vol. 13), and Rebecca E. Treasure (Vol. 36).
• Infected by Art Volume 11 included these winners and judges: Daniel Bitton (Vol. 36), Arthur Bowling (Vol. 36), Bruce Brenneise (Vol. 34), Jennifer Bruce (Vol. 37), Laura Diehl (Vol. 20), Lucas Durham (Vol. 29), Bob Eggleton (judge), Isabel Gibney (Vol. 37), Alexander Gustafson (Vol. 35), Brian C. Hailes (judge), Ben Hill (Vol. 36), Nick Jizba (Vol. 38), Ven Locklear (Vol. 24), Dustin Panzino (Vol. 27), April Solomon (Vol. 39), Dan Watson (Vol. 37), Jim Zaccaria (Vol. 38).

And of course, we released L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 39.

We are looking forward to seeing what 2024 will bring!