Introduction

Introduction

A culture is as rich and as capable of surviving as it has imaginative artists. The artist is looked upon to start things. The artist injects the spirit of life into a culture. And through his creative endeavors, the writer works continually to give tomorrow a new form.

In these modern times, there are many communication lines for works of art. Because a few works of art can be shown so easily to so many, there may even be fewer artists. The competition is very keen and even dagger sharp.

It is with this in mind that I initiated a means for new and budding writers to have a chance for their creative efforts to be seen and acknowledged. With the advent of the Writers of the Future competition came an avalanche of new material from all over the country.

And with that came the idea of creating a book that would contain the winners of the quarterly judges’ decisions.

Judging the winners for this book could not have been an easy task, and I am sincerely grateful to those professionals and top-flight veterans of the profession for their hard work and final selections which made this book possible:

Gregory Benford

Algis Budrys

Stephen Goldin

C. L. Moore

Robert Silverberg

Theodore Sturgeon

Jack Williamson

Roger Zelazny

My special thanks also goes to Algis Budrys for the invaluable work he did in editing and putting together this book.

And my heartiest congratulations to those they selected for this first volume. I am very proud to present the winners.

Good luck to all other writers of the future.

And good reading.