This obsessive focus on Elrond also expressed itself in the many questions us participants were asked about Hubbard, what the man meant to us—hardly anything—and how grateful we felt for the opportunity he’d created for us.

In 2005, with a camera crew dogging our every step for a documentary about the contest, I fell into the trap of actually answering that last question.

In the weeks leading up to the 2005 event, we had been informed that a documentary would be filmed about the Writers of the Future contest, and that a camera crew would be present through the entire event, filming the proceedings and interviewing us participants. And so there was. All through the week, one or the other of us would be called away for brief camera interviews. The crew made a very professional impression, and we had a screening of a previous film they’d done that looked very cool and slick and mainstream. And of course, being interviewed on camera made the whole experience even more mind-blowing than it already was.

So when the awards ceremony had passed, and a table piled high with new anthologies stood waiting for our mass signing, and the crew appeared in front of me asking me what I would like to say to Elrond if he were still alive today, I composed a passionate answer about his vision for the contest, and how it had come true.

Half a year later, I watched with an uneasy mix of pride and mortal embarassment as the documentary unrolled, with a disproportionate amount of screen time dedicated to me, and my answer to that final question used as a kind of Hubbard-endorsing coda to the entire film. [read on…]