A writer from the Eastern Cape town of Bedford has been feted in Hollywood after being judged as a winner in the L Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.
From stretched limos to exclusive book signings, Dorothy de Kok is reaping her just reward for her award-winning fiction book titled Thickly.
Speaking from her Hollywood hotel on Friday, the 59-year-old said she had loved the entire experience.
“I’ve never been off the African continent before, so the whole thing has been amazing.
“It’s been a week of stretch limos and workshops with the top writers and publishers in the different speculative fiction genres, and there was a huge book signing after the awards banquet last night.”
She said she had also been asked by one of the contest judges to produce a follow-up to her winning short novel that would have the same lead protagonist.
“So I’m very excited about that.”
Thickly is set in Bedford, and involves a young woman who buys a pill from the spaza shop that will make her more desirable.
News of the apparent success of the pill spreads, other characters start to try it too and a body horror tale emerges about enhancement, erasure and the price of visibility.
De Kok said Bedford was the most beautiful town in the Eastern Cape, in her view, and the people were close to her heart.
“The characters in my story are real and some of their names are too because I did not think my story was going to progress.
“But fortunately they are excited to be in the story.”
De Kok has worked as a matric English teacher, an academic editor and manager of a safe house for abused and trafficked women.
Today, in between writing, she is a successful estate agent, focusing on Bedford, Adelaide and surrounds.
She said her late father had regarded all fiction as “lies”.
“But my mother taught us it is much better to read a good novel than to fold laundry or do the dishes.
“So we had a very balanced upbringing.”
She said writing was an intrinsic part of her make-up.
“I get up every morning at 3am and write until 7am.
“I do that 365 days a year and if I deviate from that pattern, my family suffers. I can’t not write.”
L Ron Hubbard launched the Writers of the Future Contest in 1983 after the release of his bestseller Battlefield Earth, with the aim of giving aspirant speculative fiction writers a much-needed break.
Each contest culminates in the publication of an anthology of the winners and Thickly is to be included in the 42nd Writers of the Future anthology.
Speculative fiction encompasses a broad “what if” genre including science fiction, fantasy and dystopian writing.
De Kok said her advice to writers who aspired to be published one day was to enter the Writers of the Future Contest or a similar competition.
“It gives you something to aim at and when you get an honourable mention and then a silver honourable mention, as I did in recent years, then you know you are improving.”
Watch de Kok’s acceptance speech at 1:29:00:
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