NEW YORK, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- What if Tutankhamun -- better known as King Tut -- was alive today, cloned from strands of DNA? The child pharaoh from ancient Egypt whose 3,300-year-old teenage face was briefly bared to the world last week would certainly face a totally different world than the one he knew.
Author Andrea Kail asked and answered that question in her winning short story, "The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom," published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXIII (Galaxy Press, 2007). The anthology includes winning short stories contributed by new and fledgling authors to the writing contest -- Writers of the Future -- now in its 23rd year.
"The genesis of my story was the picture of a 2005 reconstruction made from a CAT scan of Tutankhamun's mummy," Kail said. "He looks so alive and so sad in that picture that it really brought home to me that this was a real person."
"I began to wonder what would happen to a young ruler emotionally if he found himself alive today," Kail added. "Would he develop an inferiority complex when compared to other world leaders . . . would he be able to deal with an Egypt no longer at the center of power in the Middle East, let alone the world?"
Reviewer Michelle Lee of the online publication, The Fix (http://www.thefix-online.com/) wrote of Kail's premise that it was "both a commentary on human conditions and a striking tale of a child-king growing up subject to the whims of others."
The Writers of the Future contest was established in 1983 by world-recognized, multiple best-selling author L. Ron Hubbard and has become the top merit-based competition of its kind for new or little-published writers worldwide. Entries are received throughout the year and are judged by leading literary professionals. The L. Ron Hubbard Presents Illustrators of the Future, begun in 1988, similarly honors artists who illustrate the winning short stories. Since inception, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests have recognized and published 500-plus authors and illustrators, produced 23 anthology volumes, and awarded a cumulative $500,000 in cash prizes.
For more information regarding Writers of the Future Volume XXIII, go to http://www.writersofthefuture.com/.
Galaxy Press
