Strange New Worlds Winners Announced

The winners of the 2016 Strange New Worlds writing contest have been announced by Pocket Books, longtime publisher of Star Trek books. The contest has its roots in the original Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthology, first published in 1998, and Pocket reestablished the Strange New Worlds writing contest in order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek.

Strange New Worlds was written by amateur writers selected through an open submissions process, with the winners’ worked included in an annual collection of short stories set in the Star Trek universe. Those popular anthologies were published until 2007 and, among others, they launched the careers of such writers as Dayton Ward, Ilsa J. Bick, Scott Pearson, Geoffrey Thorne and William Leisner.

The 10 Grand Prize winners, picked from hundreds of submissions, will each receive a $1000 advance and will have their stories included in the all-new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2016 Edition Anthology, to be published in the digital-first format later this year.

The Grand Prize winners are:

Neil Bryant
Dilithium Is a Girl's Best Friend

Gary Piserchio & Frank Tagader
A Christmas Qarol

Kelli Fitzpatrick
The Sunwalkers

Chris Chaplin
The Seen and Unseen

Michael Turner
The Façade of Fate

Nancy Debretsion
The Manhunt Pool

Derek Tyler Attico
The Dreamer and the Dream

Roger McCoy
The Last Refuge

John Coffren
Life Among the Post-Industrial Barbarians

Kristen McQuinn
Upon the Brink of Remembrance

The two First Prize winners, Kerry F. Booth and James Corrigan, will each receive a free publishing package from Archway Publishing valued at approximately $5,000 to publish a book on a subject other than Star Trek.