Image: Cover for Havemercy. Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett. (Spectra, 2008).

The books Havemercy, Shadow Magic and Dragon Soul are part of a fantasy trilogy written by 2004 Scholastic Writing Portfolio Gold Medalist Jaida Jones and her co-author Danielle Bennett. The books begin with a tale of two cities, Volstov and Ke-Han. Amidst warring magicians, macho dragon riders and their mysterious mechanical steeds, these rich characters must ultimately work together to find lasting peace. How did Jaida and Danielle publish three books (with a fourth on the way!) and conceive a rich fictional world with original characters? Like many epic sagas, it started out with a Scholastic Award, a story about firefighters, and a sensitivity training class at a summer job. Read More

Image: Madeleine L’Engle. Juror for The Scholastic Writing Awards, Short Story Division. Literary Calvacade, 1973.

Sci-fi author Madeleine L’Engle enjoyed careers as a librarian and an actress by the time she judged short stories for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in the early 1970s. But like the young writers whose work she evaluated, she was no stranger to criticism. L’Engle’s best known work, the sci-fi children’s classic A Wrinkle in Time, was initially rejected by dozens of publishers in the early 1960s. Why? According to Madeleine L’Engle: “A Wrinkle in Time had a female protagonist in a science fiction book, and that wasn’t done.” Read More

Tiffany asked: I’m seventeen 17 and I’ve finished a Young Adult book that measures in at 256 pages and somewhere around 80,000 words. I’ve been trying for months to find an agent to represent me because I want one of the bigger publishing houses to find my book. Random House would be awesome, but that is but a dream, a fancy of a teenager. Read More

High School Senior Amanda Miles won a National Gold Medal for her science fiction and fantasy piece, Allister Reese. Below is an excerpt from her haunting ghost story.

Pasta’s a lonely meal. I make it when I’m tired or alone, and certainly not expecting company. It’s quick, easy, the best option when a meal for myself isn’t worth slaving over. It was a nice dining room. It reeked of an aged renaissance, smothered in thick, rich tones of red and accents of creamy white—a well-blended atmosphere in no urgent need of interruption. Read More

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are one of the best opportunities out there for aspiring writers of science fiction and fantasy to get their work recognized. But the Awards are not the only writing competition that accepts entries in this category. Below is a sampling of opportunities devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy. Some contests offer cash prizes and opportunities for publication, so please read the directions/rules carefully as some restrictions and entry fees may apply. Read More

What makes the science fiction and fantasy genre so appealing is that anything can happen – the sky’s the limit! Even when you’re writing about an imaginary world, it’s still possible to incorporate elements that are familiar. When director James Cameron conceived the natural environment of Pandora for the movie Avatar, he drew heavy inspiration from his dives in tropical coral reefs. And multilingual lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz adapted words from Latin, Egyptian, Greek, German and Italian to create incantations for Wicked Witch Elphaba in the musical Wicked. Read More