An Awka resident, Walter Dinjos, has been officially announced as a winner in the Writers of the Future Contest.
The contest, one of the most prestigious writing competitions, is in its 33rd year and is judged by some of the premier names in speculative fiction.
Dinjos was chosen from a group of 8 finalists making him a quarterly winner in the contest. He has also earned a cash prize, a trip to Hollywood for a week-long intensive professional workshop, a gala awards ceremony which draws in excess of one thousand attendees as well as having his winning short story, “The Wood Cutter’s Deity,” published in the annual bestseller, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 33.
Walter Dinjos is Nigerian and loves singing and songwriting as much as he does fiction writing. That’s because music was his first love. In fact, as a non-native English speaker, he had sufficient apathy for writing in English until 2010 when he indulged a misinformed idea to write a novel to raise money for the production of his music.
It took him six months to realize two truths. One, his money-raising scheme was colossally flawed; making money through writing is tedious. Two, despite the dismal rejection letters and a few other unsuccessful publishing attempts, he had found too much fulfilment in writing to quit.
So he enrolled in the Writers Bureau’s Comprehensive Creative Writing course.
Now, his speculative short stories are resident in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Space & Time Magazine, Myriad Lands Volume 1, Bourbon Penn, and other literary magazines, his poems have appeared in three Literary Hatchet issues, and he hopes to portray the peculiar beauty of Nigerian cultures through his writing.
When he finds time away from his day job, he is plotting his science fantasy novel. Either that or he is exploring means (both scientific and magical) of attaining immortality. If you happen upon a medical remedy or a spell, please tweet him via @WalterDinjos.
Following the 1982 release of his internationally acclaimed bestselling science fiction novel, Battlefield Earth, written in celebration of 50 years as a professional writer, and recently released in as a bestselling 21st Century trade paperback and audiobook, L. Ron Hubbard created The Writers of the Future writing contest (www.writersofthefuture.com) in 1983 to provide a means for aspiring writers of speculative fiction 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.
The Writers of the Future Award is the genre’s most prestigious award of its kind and has now become the largest, most successful and demonstrably most influential vehicle for budding creative talent in the world of contemporary fiction. Since inception, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests have produced 32 anthology volumes and awarded a cumulative $930,000 in cash prizes and royalties.
Hundreds of winners have had successful writing careers following their win and publication in the anthology, and to date has launched the careers of 12 New York Times best selling authors including:
Jo Beverley, Tobias S. Buckell, Nancy Farmer, Eric Flint, Karen Joy Fowler, Tim Myers, Patrick Rothfuss, Lisa Smedmen, Dean Wesley Smith, Elizabeth Wein, Sean Williams, and Dave Wolverton aka David Farland.
For more information about the contest, go to www.WritersOfTheFuture.com.
