With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 350 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most enduring and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard. Then too, of course, there is all L. Ron Hubbard represents as the Founder of Dianetics and Scientology and thus the only major religion born in the 20th century.

Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” When not engaged upon this worthy occupation, she writes fantasy and science fiction books and short stories. Since 1987 she has published over 40 books and more than 120 short stories. Among the novels Nye has written are her epic fantasy series The Dreamland, beginning with Waking In Dreamland, five contemporary humorous fantasies, Mythology 101, Mythology Abroad, Higher Mythology (the three collected by Meisha Merlin Publishing as Applied Mythology), Advanced Mythology, The Magic Touch, and three medical science fiction novels, Taylor’s Ark, Medicine Show and The Lady and the Tiger. Strong Arm Tactics is a humorous military science fiction novel, the first of The Wolfe Pack series. Nye wrote The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern, a non-fiction-style guide to the world of internationally bestselling author Anne McCaffrey’s popular world. She also collaborated with Anne McCaffrey on four science fiction novels, The Death of Sleep, Crisis On Doona, Treaty At Doona and The Ship Who Won, and wrote a solo sequel to The Ship Who Won entitled The Ship Errant. Nye coauthored the Visual Guide to Xanth with bestselling fantasy author Piers Anthony, and edited an anthology of humorous stories about mothers in science fiction, fantasy, myth and legend, entitled Don’t Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear! She wrote eight books with the late Robert Lynn Asprin, License Invoked, a contemporary fantasy set in New Orleans, and seven set in Asprin’s Myth Adventures universe: Myth-Told Tales (anthology), Myth Alliances, Myth-Taken Identity, Class Dis-Mythed, Myth-Gotten Gains, Myth Chief, and Myth-Fortunes. After Asprin’s passing, she published Myth-Quoted and Dragons Deal (Ace Books), third in Asprin’s Dragons series. Her latest books are View From the Imperium (Baen Books), a humorous military SF novel, an e-collection of cat stories, Cats Triumphant (Event Horizon), Dragons Run (fourth in the Dragons series) and Launch Pad, an anthology of science fiction stories co-edited with Mike Brotherton. Over the last twenty or so years, Jody Lynn Nye has taught numerous writing workshops and participated on hundreds of panels covering the subjects of writing and being published at science-fiction conventions. She has spoken in schools and libraries around the north and northwest suburbs. In 2007 she taught fantasy writing at Columbia College Chicago. She also runs the two-day writers workshop at Dragon Con. She lives in the northwest suburbs of Atlanta, with her husband Bill Fawcett, a writer, game designer, military historian and book packager, and a black cat, Jeremy. Jody Lynn Nye became a Writers of the Future judge in 2016.

Tim Powers was born in Buffalo, New York, on Leap Year Day in 1952, but has lived in southern California since 1959. He graduated from California State University at Fullerton with a BA in English in 1976; the same year saw the publication of his first two novels, The Skies Discrowned and Epitaph in Rust. Tim’s subsequent novels are The Drawing of the Dark, The Anubis Gates (winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award and the Prix Apollo), Dinner at Deviant’s Palace (winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award), On Stranger Tides, The Stress of Her Regard, Last Call (winner of the World Fantasy Award), Expiration Date, Earthquake Weather, Declare (winner of the World Fantasy Award) and Three Days to Never. His most recent book is Hide Me Among the Graves. The Manchester Guardian called Powers “the best fantasy writer to appear in decades.” Tim has taught at the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop at Michigan State University six times and currently teaches the annual Writers of the Future workshop. He has been involved with the Contest since its early years, serving as one of the instructors (along with Algis Budrys and Orson Scott Card) at the very first official WotF workshop in Sag Harbor. He was formally inducted as a judge in 1993. Powers lives with his wife, Serena, in San Bernardino, California. Dr. Robert J. Sawyer, called “the dean of Canadian science fiction” by The Ottawa Citizen, has won all three of the science fiction field’s top honors for best novel of the year, the Hugo, the Nebula and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, as well as eleven Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (Auroras). The ABC TV series Flash Forward was based on his novel of the same name. Maclean’s: Canada’s Weekly Newsmagazine says, “By any reckoning, Sawyer is among the most successful Canadian authors ever.” Sawyer’s novels are top-ten mainstream bestsellers in Canada. His twenty-three novels include Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, Calculating God, Wake and the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy: Hominids, Humans, Hybrids. He’s often seen on TV, including such programs as Rivera Live with Geraldo Rivera, Canada AM and Saturday Night at the Movies, and he’s a frequent science commentator for Discovery Channel Canada, CBC Newsworld and CBC Radio. Sawyer holds an honorary doctorate from Laurentian University and has taught writing at the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, Humber College, the National University of Ireland and the Banff Centre. He edits Robert J. Sawyer Books, the science fiction imprint of Red Deer Press. He was born in Ottawa in 1960, and now lives near Toronto with his wife, poet Carolyn Clink. He has served as a judge since 2005.

Australian Sean Williams is another Contest winner turned successful author and now WotF judge. He is the author of over one hundred published short stories and fifty novels, and has been called many things in his time, including “the premier Australian speculative fiction writer of the age” (Aurealis), the “Emperor of Sci-Fi” (Adelaide Advertiser), the “Lord of the Genre” (Perth Writers’ Festival), and the “King of Chameleons” (Australian Book Review) for the diversity of his published output. He is a multiple recipient of the Aurealis and Ditmar Awards and has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, the Seiun Award, and the William Atheling Jr. Award for criticism. He also received the “SA Great” Literature Award in 2000 and the Peter McNamara Award for contributions to Australian speculative fiction in 2008. Williams has been published around the world in numerous languages, online and in spoken word editions. After winning the Writers of the Future Contest in 1992, he has never looked back. He is currently the bestselling science fiction writer in Australia and is also a #1 New York Times bestseller. Williams lives with his wife and family in Adelaide. He completed a master’s in creative writing at Adelaide University in 2005 and went on to earn a Masters and PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide. He is a founding board member of the award-winning Big Book Club Inc., and was recently elected to the role of Overseas Regional Director in the SFWA. He has been a guest of all the literary festivals of Australian capital cities (some of them more than once) and various national SF conventions. Sean Williams became a WotF judge in 2003, only ten years after becoming a Contest winner.

Tom Wood is a fantasy art illustrator who is among the best-selling poster artists in the US and Canada. The “Tom Wood Fantasy Art” brand has sold millions of products since 2005. Tom’s creations of dragons and medieval, death-defying warriors have become iconic images of fantasy culture across America, Europe, and Asia. In addition as a commercial artist, Tom’s clients have included well-known companies: Warner Brothers, Disney, NBA, NFL, MLS, Reebok, Gatorade, and the NCAA. His formal education began at the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville), where he was accepted on a full academic scholarship. His first professional work was in the screen-printing industry, art directing many sports designs. His early career launched and grew during the desktop revolution of the 1990s, where he quickly mastered his digital skills to become an art director and illustrator. This propelled his extensive freelance career that he maintains today, with his company Meridian Design Works Corp and Tom Wood Fantasy Art. Tom’s painstaking attention to detail is the hallmark of his life-like images—images that do not simply tell a story, they transport one to entirely new fantastical realms. His compassion and enthusiasm for the visual arts make him sought after as a speaker. He spends much of his time outside the studio mentoring students, as well as appearing at comic cons across the country. Tom has been an Illustrators of the Future judge since 2021.

Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” When not engaged upon this worthy occupation, she writes fantasy and science fiction books and short stories. Since 1987 she has published over 40 books and more than 120 short stories. Among the novels Nye has written are her epic fantasy series The Dreamland, beginning with Waking In Dreamland, five contemporary humorous fantasies, Mythology 101, Mythology Abroad, Higher Mythology (the three collected by Meisha Merlin Publishing as Applied Mythology), Advanced Mythology, The Magic Touch, and three medical science fiction novels, Taylor’s Ark, Medicine Show and The Lady and the Tiger. Strong Arm Tactics is a humorous military science fiction novel, the first of The Wolfe Pack series. Nye wrote The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern, a non-fiction-style guide to the world of internationally bestselling author Anne McCaffrey’s popular world. She also collaborated with Anne McCaffrey on four science fiction novels, The Death of Sleep, Crisis On Doona, Treaty At Doona and The Ship Who Won, and wrote a solo sequel to The Ship Who Won entitled The Ship Errant. Nye coauthored the Visual Guide to Xanth with bestselling fantasy author Piers Anthony, and edited an anthology of humorous stories about mothers in science fiction, fantasy, myth and legend, entitled Don’t Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear! She wrote eight books with the late Robert Lynn Asprin, License Invoked, a contemporary fantasy set in New Orleans, and seven set in Asprin’s Myth Adventures universe: Myth-Told Tales (anthology), Myth Alliances, Myth-Taken Identity, Class Dis-Mythed, Myth-Gotten Gains, Myth Chief, and Myth-Fortunes. After Asprin’s passing, she published Myth-Quoted and Dragons Deal (Ace Books), third in Asprin’s Dragons series. Her latest books are View From the Imperium (Baen Books), a humorous military SF novel, an e-collection of cat stories, Cats Triumphant (Event Horizon), Dragons Run (fourth in the Dragons series) and Launch Pad, an anthology of science fiction stories co-edited with Mike Brotherton. Over the last twenty or so years, Jody Lynn Nye has taught numerous writing workshops and participated on hundreds of panels covering the subjects of writing and being published at science-fiction conventions. She has spoken in schools and libraries around the north and northwest suburbs. In 2007 she taught fantasy writing at Columbia College Chicago. She also runs the two-day writers workshop at Dragon Con. She lives in the northwest suburbs of Atlanta, with her husband Bill Fawcett, a writer, game designer, military historian and book packager, and a black cat, Jeremy. Jody Lynn Nye became a Writers of the Future judge in 2016.

Craig Elliott is an artist based in Los Angeles, California. He received his education at the famed Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and studied under artists such as Harry Carmean and Burne Hogarth. Craig’s carefully crafted and arresting images of nature and the human form have captivated audiences with their visual and intellectual celebration of the beauty in this world and beyond. In addition to his fine artwork, Craig has had a hand in designing many of today’s most popular animated films from studios such as Disney and Dreamworks. A multi-faceted artist, he is also an accomplished landscape architect, sculptor and most recently, jewelry designer. Especially known for his exceptional ability with the human figure and creative composition, Craig’s work has evolved into a unique vision informing and influencing fine art, print, animation, and commercial worlds. In the animation industry he has worked primarily for Disney and Dreamworks, designing their animated films such as Hercules, Mulan, The Emperor’s New Groove, Treasure Planet, Shark Tale, Flushed Away, Bee Movie, Enchanted, Monsters vs. Aliens, and The Princess and the Frog as well as other upcoming features. He has been an Illustrators of the Future judge since 2019.