Anne Rice: Surrender to Love

Anne Rice. When people hear her name, many immediately think of her wildly successful vampire books–books that have inspired films, television adaptations, live theater performance, comics, fan fiction and even music. We’re talking sales of 100 million books worldwide. Now that’s an audience!

What some don’t know is that in 2004, Rice announced that she had returned to the faith of her childhood and had determined that from that time forward she would “write only for the Lord,” leaving behind the “aetheistic despair, searching and misery” she had been mired in.

Since that time, her books “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt” and “Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana,” (the first two books in a planned trilogy) and “Angel Time” have been published. “Angel Time: The Songs of the Seraphim” hit the shelves in October 2009.

On January 14, Rice appeared in an interview on The 700 Club. In the interview, she talks about her search for God and her subsequent return to the faith. With many of her loyal fans following her story, she has had opportunity to respond to others who are reaching out to escape the misery and search for meaning they identified with in her vampire books. What journey she has made.

You can see for yourself Rice’s current projects and story at her website:
http://www.annerice.com/

She also has a Facebook fan page at:
Anne Rice’s Facebook Fan Page

Meanwhile, here’s a link to the 8-minute video interview: Anne Rice Interview

Bid for a Chance to be in a Terry Brooks Novel

Terry Brooks is auctioning off the opportunity for the winner to appear in a future novel. The proceeds go to benefit the World Association for Children and Parents child assistance charity.  The auction is the WACAP’s 4th Annual Children’s Hope Auction.

A link to the Terry Brook’s character auction is here. As of today, the leading bid is $175. Here’s the blurb from that page:

Item Description: Would you like to be immortal?  For more than 30 years, Terry Brooks has been a highly influential force in fantasy fiction. His first book, The Sword of Shannara, was published in 1977 and made publishing history, becoming the first work of fiction to appear on the New York Times Trade Paperback Bestseller list, where it remained for over five months.  His Shannara, Landover and Word & Void books have made him one of the top picks of fantasy readers worldwide.  His works have been compared to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.  Now you can be a character in one of his books.  With over 50 books currently in print, you can be assured that any book he writes will be read by thousands and become a part of book collections in home and libraries around the world.  In addition, you will receive an autographed copy of the finished book on publication.

Special Instructions: The author, of course, retains the right to decide if you will be a hero, a villain, a human, a monster or something even stranger.  The more you bid, the better your chances of being cast in a favorable role and being given a larger part in the story.

Writers and Illustrators of the Future: Winners Announced for 2009

This year’s winners in the quarterly/annual Writers and Illustrators of the Future contest were announced yesterday. As always, the winners come from around the world and are awarded cash prizes, free travel and accommodations to the annual awards presentation, week-long professional workshop and guaranteed publication in an annual anthology. Grand prize winners for writing and illustration will be announced at the annual awards ceremony to be held in August.

“It’s amazing to me that a good 60%–70% of the winners go on with successful careers in writing, and several have become best-selling authors themselves, said New York Times best-selling author and contest judge Kevin J. Anderson (Dune prequels, Star Wars, X-Files).

Throughout the Contest’s 25-year history, more than 250 writers and nearly 200 illustrators have been recognized as winners, according to Labaqui. They’ve gone on to publish over 300 novels and 3,000 short stories as well as thousands of published illustrations. Former Writers of the Future Contest winners listed on the New York Times best-seller’s list include Jo Beverly, Nancy Farmer, Karen Joy Fowler, Sean Williams, Dave Wolverton and Patrick Rothfuss.

The contest was inspired by L. Ron Hubbard 25 years ago. Because of this, I was initially skeptical of the contest, but further research revealed that it is not connected to Hubbard’s Christian Science ideology. That and seeing who the contest judges were made me a believer in the weight this contest caries in the general market for SciFi and Fantasy fiction. Judges include Kevin J. Anderson, Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Tim Powers, Robert Sawyer, Robert Silverberg, K.D. Wentworth and equally famous illustrator judges such as Frank Frazetta, Bob Eggleton, Sergey Poyarkov, Stephen Hickman and Stephen Youll.

The contest provides new writers a leg up in entering the general market. Typically only 3 (yes, only three!) of every 10,000 manuscripts submitted in the United States each year are published, many by established authors, according to Contest Director Joni Labaqui.

So here is the list of annual winners that will be published in this year’s anthology. Keep an eye open. You may see some of these again soon in your local bookstore.

FIRST QUARTER WRITERS OF THE FUTURE

First place: Matthew Rotundo of Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Second place: Gary Kloster of Braham, Minnesota, USA
Third place: Fiona Lehn of Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA

ILLUSTRATORS OF THE FUTURE
Oleksandra Barysheva of Matawan, New Jersey, USA
A.R. Stone of Eugene, Oregon, USA
Tobias Anson Fruge of Mesa, Arizona, USA

SECOND QUARTER WRITERS OF THE FUTURE

First place: Donald Mead of Bloomington, Illinois, USA
Second place: Mike Wood of Wirral, ENGLAND
Third place: Gra Linnaea of Eugene, Oregon, USA

ILLUSTRATORS OF THE FUTURE
Mark Payton of Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
Joshua Stewart of Rexburg, Idaho, USA
Aaron Anderson of Saratosa Springs, Utah, USA

THIRD QUARTER WRITERS OF THE FUTURE

First place: Jordan Lapp of Coquitlam, British Columbia, CANADA
Second place: C.L. Holland of Anglessey, UNITED KINGDOM
Third place: Krista Hoeppner Leahy of Brooklyn, New York, USA

ILLUSTRATORS OF THE FUTURE
Douglas Bosley of Bellingham, Washington, USA
Evan Jensen of Annapolis, Maryland, USA
Ryan Behrens of Olympia, Washington, USA

FOURTH QUARTER WRITERS OF THE FUTURE

First place: Emery Huang of Orlando, Florida, USA
Second place: Heather McDougal of Davenport, California, USA
Third place: Schon Zwakman of Cottage Grove, Minnesota, USA

ILLUSTRATORS OF THE FUTURE
Jamie Luhn of Myersville, Maryland, USA
Luke Eidenschnik of St. Joseph, Minnesota, USA
Brianne Hills of Billerica, Massachusetts, USA

Congratulations to all the winners! The anthology (Volume 25) can be pre-ordered here. Release date is September 15, 2009.