Blackfoot mother wins Writers of the Future contest

BLACKFOOT — Persistence has paid off for Blackfoot mom and writer Brittany Rainsdon.

After entering three previous times and being selected as a published finalist last year, Rainsdon has won the Writers of the Future contest. She will also be honored at an award ceremony in Hollywood on April 8.

Her story, “The Last Dying Season,” will be published in “L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. 38.” It’s the second consecutive volume of the best-selling fantasy/science fiction anthology to feature one of her stories.

“(‘The Last Dying Season’) is about a botanist who has to cure a dying planet before an evacuation,” Rainsdon told EastIdahoNews.com. “The evacuation will force her to leave behind her young daughter. So she wants to cure the planet so she can save her daughter.”

Rainsdon said the seeds of this story were planted a couple of years ago when she was thinking about her children.

“I had a major health scare,” she said. “The thing that scared me about that health scare was never dying but it was leaving the kids behind without a mom and someone to take care of them. So that’s what (this story) explores.”

Writing “The Last Dying Season” necessitated Rainson to jump from writing fantasy fiction to science fiction. She said writing science fiction required a bit of a different approach than writing fantasy.

“With fantasy and magic, you can kind of bend rules,” she said. “With science fiction, you have to have to base it off of some real science. For me in this story, I based it off an idea I got from reading a science article talking about space exploration and sending embryos out and having them grown in a womb chamber.”

Rainsdon added that one thing that unites fantasy and science fiction is that the stories in both genres require one other crucial ingredient.

“Dave Farland, who was the (Writers of the Future) contest director until he, unfortunately, passed away, said ‘The thing that (the contest judges) look for in these stories is wonder.’ I think the best stories have some sort of sense of wonder, whether they’re science fiction or fantasy. You need wonder element.”

Rainsdon’s story had enough wonder and told a compelling enough tale to convince the Writers of the Future judges to pick her as one of the three contest winners. After entering four times, Rainsdon said that winning felt like a big step forward for her.

“When I was a finalist, I got word back and they told me I’d made fourth place, which was devastating because I just barely missed out and I didn’t win,” she said. “For me, it was a goal that I had set for myself four years ago, five years ago now with submissions and how long it takes to be published.”

“I entered the contest for four years and (winning) almost felt like a graduation of sorts because I never missed a quarter,” she added. “I entered every single quarter for those four years, sixteen entries. So it was like a culmination, like ‘You don’t get to enter the contest any more because we think you’re good enough to be a professional.”

Because Rainsdon recently had a baby, she is taking a break from long writing sessions and is unable to attend next week’s awards gala. But she’s doing what she can to keep generating new stories.

“Right now, I am writing when I can but it’s not much,” she said. “Mostly, it’s just jotting down ideas for when I can get more time. I still want to write but I am having to take a break right now because of circumstances.”

When she is able to get back to writing again, Rainsdon is hopeful that winning Writers of the Future will open doors for her as an author.

“The editors of ‘Galaxy’s Edge’ magazine said ‘You send your stuff to us and tell us that you’re one of these winners and we’ll look at your stuff’,” she said. “Part of the reason I pursued the contest is because it’s hard to break into these types of deals. So any sort of leg up or way to make myself stand out, that’s what I was trying to do. There are doors that are opened just because you won.”

Click here to pre-order a copy of “L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol.38.”

You can also keep tabs on Rainsdon by visiting her website and you can click here to get the lowdown on the Writers of the Future contest.