One-time Maplewood resident Randyn Bartholomew won the grand prize in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest, earning the Golden Pen Award trophy and a $5,000 cash prize. His winning story, “Ascii,” is published in the anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 41, released on April 22, 2025. Bartholomew was honored along with the other winners in the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests on April 10 at the Taglyan Complex in Hollywood, California. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Bartholomew grew up in Maplewood and Summit, graduating from Summit High School. Although he majored in math at Cornell, Bartholomew switched gears to become a Brooklyn-based freelance writer of science journalism, ghost writing, copywriting and fiction. His articles have appeared in Scientific American, Salon and The Washington Post Magazine, among others.
Following the 1982 release Battlefield Earth, science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, created the Writers of the Future contest in 1983 to provide a means for aspiring writers of speculative fiction to get that much-needed break. Due to the success of the Writers of the Future contest, the companion Illustrators of the Future contest was inaugurated five years later.
According to a news release, in the 41 years of the Writers of the Future contest, there have been 571 winners and published finalists. Past winners of the Writing contest have published 2,000 novels and nearly 6,300 short stories. They have produced 36 New York Times bestsellers, and their works have sold over 60 million copies.
Since its inception, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests have produced 41 anthology volumes (with this event) and awarded upwards of $1 million in cash prizes and royalties.
