Podcast

328. Volume 41 winners: Robert Lowell, Jordan Smajstrla, CL Fors, and Ian Keith

These four winners from year 41 at the Writers & Illustrators of the Future workshop and awards gala: Robert Lowell, author of “Kill Switch”; Jordan Smajstrla, illustrator of “Kill Switch”; CL “Cherrie” Fors, illustrator of “A World of Repetitions”; Ian Keith, author of “Blackbird Stone.”

We discuss their journey as creative individuals and what makes the workshop so special for them and what Writers and Illustrators of the Future means to them and to the genre.

Kill Switch

by Robert F. Lowell

Illustrated by
Jordan Smajstrla (Grand Prize Illustrator)

When an obsolete police robot gets one last chance to avoid the scrapyard, he finds the line between justice and murder is as thin as a silicon wafer.

A World of Repetitions

by Seth Atwater Jr.

Illustrated by
CL Fors

The world is trapped in a thirty-four-hour time loop where everything resets except memories. With reality fractured, humanity struggles to forge a new normal.

Blackbird Stone

by Ian Keith

Illustrated by
Marianna Mester

When a door to eternity opens in a downtown doctor’s office, a man and a woman from opposite sides forge a marriage of love between irreconcilable universes.