Golden Brush award winner
- The 42nd Writers & Illustrators of the Future ceremony named Bohuslav Argalas the Golden Brush Award recipient on April 16. - The ceremony took place at the Taglyan Complex in Los Angeles with multiple new writers honored. - The awards highlight emerging talent in speculative fiction and illustration within the genre community. (locusmag.com)
Bohuslav Argalas, who works as Bafu, won the 2026 Golden Brush Award on April 16 for his illustration of “Saffron and Marigolds.” (locusmag.com) The award was presented at the 42nd annual Writers of the Future and 37th annual Illustrators of the Future ceremony at the Taglyan Complex in Los Angeles. Locus reported that Argalas is from Slovakia and illustrated a story by writer Kathleen Powell. (locusmag.com) The same ceremony gave the Golden Pen Award to Michael T. Kuester of Ohio for “In Living Color,” illustrated by Nathan Deiwert. Locus listed 12 writer winners and 12 illustrator winners whose work appears in the new Volume 42 anthology. (locusmag.com) The Golden Brush is the top annual prize inside the Illustrators of the Future contest, which selects winners through quarterly rounds and then has them compete in the anthology for the grand prize. The contest’s official site says quarterly winners receive a 30-day commission to illustrate a winning story before the annual award is chosen. (writersofthefuture.com) The program is aimed at new entrants, not established professionals. Locus and the contest site both say the contests are free to enter and are open to people who have not been professionally published. (locusmag.com, writersofthefuture.com) Argalas’ win also marked a recent first for his home country in the contest pipeline. Organizers said in July 2025 that Slovakia had become the 51st country to produce a contest winner when Argalas was named a second-quarter illustrator winner for Year 42. (bratislavatoday.com) The contest has been running for more than four decades. The official site says Writers of the Future began in 1983, and its anthology page says the annual book series has been published since 1985. (writersofthefuture.com, writersofthefuture.com) This year’s gala closed a week of workshops, lectures and classes for the winners in Los Angeles. By the end of the night, Argalas had moved from quarterly winner to the contest’s top illustrator for 2026. (locusmag.com, natlawreview.com)
