New award winners named

Michael T. Kuester won the 2026 Grand Prize Writer award, and Bafu won the Grand Prize Illustrator award at this year’s Writers & Illustrators of the Future gala. (writersofthefuture.com) The awards were presented April 16 at the L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards Gala in the Grand Ballroom of the Taglyan Cultural Complex in Los Angeles, according to event coverage and follow-up reports published April 18 and April 19. (writersofthefuture.com) (amazingstories.com) Kuester received the Golden Pen Award for his story “In Living Color.” Bafu, who is based in Ruzomberok, Slovakia, received the Golden Brush Award for illustrating “Saffron and Marigolds.” (writersofthefuture.com) (amazingstories.com) Writers of the Future is a contest for new science fiction and fantasy writers, and Illustrators of the Future does the same for new artists in the field. The program publishes quarterly winners in an annual anthology and then selects one grand-prize winner in each category. (sfadb.com) (writersofthefuture.com) The 2026 awards closed out the workshop week for Volume 42, the anthology built from winners chosen across 2025. The official site says the contests have now published more than 1,000 writers and illustrators, with entrants from more than 175 countries and winners from 52 countries. (writersofthefuture.com) Kuester reached the final round by winning first place in the third quarter of Volume 42 in October 2025. The official quarterly results listed him as being from Ohio. (writersofthefuture.com) The illustrator side follows the same structure: three winners are named each quarter, and the judges later choose one annual grand-prize winner, who also receives an extra $5,000 cash award. (writersofthefuture.com) This year’s ceremony ended with the two top awards going to a writer from Ohio and an illustrator from Slovakia, capping a Los Angeles event built to introduce new speculative-fiction talent to readers, editors, and fans. (writersofthefuture.com)