When Author Services sent me a request to add a fantasy fiction story to Volume 34 of the Writers of the Future anthologies, Jody Lynn Nye was excited. They asked if she had any tales in her archive that would fit into the theme of wizardry and magic. And that's the start of what became "Illusion."

Michael Michera is a self-taught artist who found out about L. Ron Hubbard’s Illustrators of the Future Contest quite accidentally from a friend who then persuaded him to enter. That accidental encounter resulted in Michael winning the grand prize.

On Day 4 it was another early morning. The artists had been…