Writers of the Future Podcast

Today’s guests are Marie Whittaker, Mark Stallings, Todd Fahnestock, and Quincy J. Allen, who co-create the Eldros Legacy fantasy series. Marie Whittaker enjoys teaching about publishing and project management for writers. She is Associate Publisher at WordFire Press and Director at Superstars Writing Seminars. She is the creator of The Adventures of Lola Hopscotch. In 2021, she co-founded the epic fantasy world of Eldrose Legacy – the subject of this podcast. Mark Stallings is an Amazon Best Selling author living in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is a writer of Chinese martial arts fiction called Woo-Sha (Wuxia), Fantasy, Thrillers, and Military Sci-Fi. Mark released the first book in the Silver Coin Saga, The Elements, Eldrose Legacy, and the 4Horsemen Universes. Todd Fahnestock is a fantasy writer for all ages and winner of the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age Award. His bestselling The Wishing World series began as bedtime stories for his children, and his other epic fantasy series include: Threadweavers, The Heartstone Trilogy, and The Whisper Prince Trilogy. Quincy J. Allen is a National Bestselling cross-genre author with a wide assortment of publications under his belt. His media tie-in novel Colt the Outlander: Shadow of Ruin was a Scribe Award finalist in 2019, and his noir sci-fi novel Chemical Burn was a Colorado Gold Award finalist in 2010.

I met Kevin Ikenberry at Superstars in Colorado Springs and was amazed at how many common connections we shared. He has over twenty-five years of experience in space science education, including managing the U.S. Space Camp program and serving as an executive of two Challenger Learning Centers. Kevin is the internationally bestselling author of The Protocol War series featuring Colorado Book Award finalist "Sleeper Protocol," which Publisher’s Weekly called “an emotionally powerful debut,” and the sequel "Vendetta Protocol." Kevin is also the author of nine bestselling "Peacemaker" novels in the Four Horsemen Universe as well as the military science fiction novel Runs In The Family and the thriller Super-Sync. Kevin has also contributed to the Nebula-award nominated Caine Riordan series by Charles E. Gannon and his alternate history novel, "The Crossing," written with Eric Flint. Learn more at https://kevinikenberry.com/

Storm Humbert was a Writers of the Future Volume 36 winner and published in multiple magazines. Most recent is The Librarian, a collection with Air and Nothingness Press, and Of Wizards and Wolves, a tribute anthology for David Farland, published with WordFire Press. In this podcast, we discuss a Kickstarter for the "Inner Workings Anthology, A Calendar of Fools." Kickstarter link: https://bit.ly/IWFools The following description was provided by Storm: "Inner Workings" is an anthology filled with 16 stories from award-winning authors, but that's not all it is. "Each of these stories is accompanied by a craft essay meant to explore or explain a specific element of craft that was featured in that story. The goal here is to entertain and excite with our fiction, but also to educate with the essays--to help would-be writers grow in their craft by understanding things in a way that simply experiencing them on the page might not achieve. "Basically, we want to do as we've been taught to do and pay it forward. In winning Writers of the Future, we had the opportunity to learn from incredible authors, but we also got to meet each other. Since then, we've found each of us has something to teach the others, and that's what we want to do with 'Inner Workings.' We want to share with burgeoning writers the things we've been sharing between ourselves. "We want to open up this wonderful community we've found for everyone to enjoy."

Raymond Porter is an American actor and audiobook narrator who is most widely known for portraying the DC Comics villain Darkseid in Zack Snyder's Justice League. But for this interview, he was best known as the voice talent for Jonathan Maberry's "Joe Ledger Series" and for Andy Weir's "Project Hail Mary" which we discussed. I also learned that Ray had narrated several L. Ron Hubbard stories. We discussed the many facets of recording audiobooks, both technical and philosophical. We had a lot of fun and he explained what works and doesn't work in storytelling from his perspective as a voice actor.

James Artemis Owen is an amazing artist and brilliant author. He is known for his creator-owned comic book series "Starchild," and his fantasy series, “The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica” titled “Here, There be Dragons,” which I just finished reading in preparation for this very fun interview! Learn more at: jamesaowen.com/

Today’s guests are William Joseph Roberts, AKA Hillbilly, and Benjamin Tyler Smith. Hillbilly is an award winner author for the JTF Legends. He is also an editor and publisher of Three Ravens Publishing. Ben is a writer of sf & f and is one of the co-publishers of Three Ravens Publishing. Their dream has been to help other authors get published and we became best of friends since virtually meeting during pandemic when Hillibilly took the Writers of the Future Online Workshop, then meeting him at DragonCon last year, and now spending time at Superstars 2023. This is their story of building Three Ravens Publishing.

Ron Collins was a very enthusiastic writer winner back in 1998. His is one of our iconic photos for Writers of the Future with him kissing his framed certificate after having been announced. He was initially published in WOTF 14 as a finalist with the story “The Disappearance of Josie Andrew” and then the following year as a winner in volume 15 with his story “Out of the Blue.” He has since gone on to write at least two dozen novels in multiple genres, sci-fi, fantasy, and political thriller. In this interview, we tackle space-based science fiction centered around his Stealing the Sun Series, which evolved from his 24-hour story written at the Writers of the Future Workshop. Learn more at https://typosphere.com/

Douglas E. Richards discusses the blur between science and science fiction. He speaks to the furious pace of progress, and how he's come to believe that almost nothing is out of reach. This is a topic covered in his recent novel, "Portals." We also discuss addiction, not drugs, but all forms and how it fits into "Portals." DIA is researching "Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy" and the speed with which science fiction is moving to science fact. Learn more at www.douglaserichards.com/

Scot Noel was published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 6 in 1990, which helped launch a very successful career as a writer and in starting his own science fiction and fantasy magazine, DreamForge. This is his story. He also reveals what he is looking for from authors wanting to be published. Scot views the world with the perspective that the glass is half full and the future will always be better. He has created a special offer for podcast listeners: https://dreamforgemagazine.com/wotf/ The first 50 new print subscribers get a free copy of Worlds of Light & Darkness, and the first 50 digital subscribers get a print back issue. (offers limited to US only) Discover DreamForge at https://dreamforgemagazine.com/

J.L. George lives in Cardiff, Wales, and writes weird and speculative fiction. She was a winner published in Writers of the Future Volume 36 with her story "Catching My Death" and has just released her novel, "The Word" (www.amazon.com/Word-JL-George-ebook/dp/B09C52NZ38). She also writes contemporary/urban fantasy as Louise Long. We discuss the importance of having great titles for your work. We discuss the power of language and how it affects a population while presenting a cautionary tale of what may lie ahead for us as social media disinformation creates such divisiveness. You can reach her at https://jlgeorgewrites.wordpress.com/