A couple of weeks before Worldcon, Sherry [Coldsmith] and I got a phonecall from Lisa Tuttle. Would we, she enquired, like to take part in a writers' workshop being run by Algis Budrys? You betcha we would. Tell us more.
So Lisa told us more, ending with Robert Springall's phone number at Writers of the Future. We rang off, and thought about it some more. Would it turn into a PR session for Scientology? There was some suspicion that we wouldn't have to bring stories; if so, what the hell would we actually be doing? We couldn't take four days out without being pretty damn sure it was going to be worthwhile.
Robert Springall assured us that it was purely about writing, and that the reason we wouldn't need a manuscript was that we'd be learning new writing methods, not analysing old mistakes. This definitely gave us pause, but further checking revealed that we did in fact have to take a story along, so ... well, Budrys was a good writer, and I at least felt sure it would be worth hearing what he had to say about the pieces. I also felt sure he was too good a writer to promote anything but valuable writing techniques.
Monday morning, nine-thirty, the eight of us gathered in the basement of the Dickens House Museum, where we met Algis and Edna Budrys, and Ian Watson. Ian assisted Algis during the workshop. We got some introductory stuff, mostly about the Writers of the Future programme; about the great writers who have lent their names and their time to it; about how good a thing it is for all the new writers around; about the competition details; about the workshops planned for the U.K.; about the details of the rest of the week's work in the workshop; and about Scientology. This last took the form of a warning from Budrys more or less along the following lines (I paraphrase from memory):
"I can guarantee you all one thing. During Conspiracy, someone will come up to you and tell you that you've been brainwashed without knowing it, that you're a dupe of the Scientologists, that you're spreading an evil movement across the world. Therefore, you should know that when Ron Hubbard founded the Writers of the Future programme, he did it because he had been in his day one of the greatest of all pulp writers – a fact often conveniently forgotten – and he had a deep affection for SF, and wanted to give something back to the genre. He felt that the best way to do this was to give beginning writers a new way into the field, and so he started the Writers of the Future competition, which gives away a couple of thousand dollars in prize money quarterly.
"When he offered me" – [Budrys] – "the job of coordinating the programme, I took it on condition that it should have nothing to do with the Church of Scientology. However, Hubbard himself made exactly the same condition; he said there were two reasons. Firstly, he did not feel it appropriate that the two should have any connection beyond his name. Secondly, if there was any business connection between the Church and anything that might be called a profit-making organization such as Bridge/New Era Publications, then the US Inland Revenue would be down on the Church for millions of dollars of income tax, as it would lose its tax-exempt status."
(I stress that the above two paragraphs are based on my memory of what Budrys said; his actual words may have been somewhat different.)
That was the last we heard of Scientology for the workshop. Or so I thought. However, the methods used by the workshop are worth examining, as I gather that the "technology for writing" approach they use is pretty much in line with the standard Scientology method. This seems fairly harmless; but it might be worth pondering the likelihood of someone discovering that their writing had been helped by such a method; and being influenced to join the Scientologists as a result. Whether this is a bad thing, and whether it's an effect that has been anticipated by the Scientologists working for and with the Writers of the Future team, are matters of opinion.
As far as the usefulness of the methods is concerned, I think I gained a lot of useful insights into the process of writing from the workshop. I think my own work will improve as a result, and I feel sure most beginning writers would be helped at least as much as they would be by a more conventional workshop. Essentially, we were given potted lectures on the structure of a story, the mechanics of suspense, the necessity and serendipity of research, and so forth. The supporting materials were mostly articles written by Hubbard for writers' magazines in the thirties and forties, before he invented Dianetics.
There was, however, a piece on the definition and value of art, that dated from after the foundation of the Church, and which to my mind was the most dogmatic and the least useful piece. It was written in the style of a textbook. A sample: "A concept of the beholder and some understanding of his or her acceptance level is necessary to the formulation of a successful art form or presentation. This includes an approximation of what is familiar to him and is associated with the desired effect."
Well, the workshop ended and Conspiracy began. I obtained, at my own initiative, a slip of paper signed by Paul Kincaid, the Hugo administrator, reading "I have no reason to suspect any irregularities in the final ballot for the novel Hugo" and passed it to Budrys, as he had mentioned he expected accusations of Scientologists buying the Hugo for Black Genesis. I went along to the Writers of the Future panel, which I'd organized, and learnt little I didn't know. Rut most of the time, certainly on Friday, I was too busy to hear the rumours about the Scientologists having bought the convention, as I was the on-duty programming trouble-shooter for that day, and I did a bit of work over the rest of the convention.
Most notably, I was at the sub-committee meeting on Sunday morning that discussed the speech Budrys wanted to give before the Hugos. Peter Nicholls was outspokenly against it, even without the spur of the "Conspiracy '87 -a branch of L. Ron Hubbard Inc." posters that we started to find everywhere. We eventually decided that I should go and talk to Budrys, as I was on good terms with him; show him the posters, and suggest either cancelling the speech, or possibly interposing an extra (spurious) announcement between him and the Hugos, to emphasize that Budrys' speech was not part of the ceremony.
I found Budrys in the Hugo hall, at the rehearsals. He was unsurprised by the poster, and said he thought it was probably American fans who had done it. He explained that in fact the main reason he wanted to speak was to scotch these rumours and that he hadn't wanted to say so to Chris Donaldson. He said he would naturally not object to another subsequent announcement to separate him from the Hugos.
Given this, Peter, Chris Donaldson, Paul Oldroyd and I decided it would be OK. So we went ahead – and of course Budrys went back on his word, and used the announcement as he had claimed he would originally – to publicize the WOTF programme, including mentioning Bridge/New Era and L. Ron Hubbard by name.
I don't think Budrys lied to me; I think he decided we were being paranoid, and changed his mind. But when the flak blew up, he contacted Sarah Baziuk, the publicist for Writers of the Future in this country (poor woman) and suggested that she take me out for lunch and get my opinions – presumably as Joe Fan. I was a little disconcerted to find that she was a Scientologist, because that seemed instantly to make a mockery of the claims that the Church and the WOTF programme were only historically connected. In the end, I suggested that the only way to clean up the image would be to (a) appoint an independent director of WOTF in the U.K. – someone with unimpeachable credentials – and give them complete autonomy from Bridge/New Era, except for the money; and (b) get rid of Hubbard's name.
I knew perfectly well (b) was ridiculous. But I thought it would be interesting to see whether the Writers of the Future people, as distinct from the Bridge/New Era people, would be prepared to even hypothetically entertain the idea of getting someone else to sponsor the programme. Nobody denies the programme is a Good Thing (stripped down to its essentials) but is that what they are pushing, or is it Hubbard's name? When I asked Sarah what her reaction would be if another sponsor could be found, she said that it would be unfair to Hubbard; it had been his dream, and you couldn't take it away from him like that.
I have a story in the competition. I'm not sorry I submitted it, but if it wins, I would have to think hard about whether or not I'd agree to have it printed in the annual Writers of the Future anthology. And yet, if it does win, the Writers of the Future will give me a start in my writing career. How should I be ungrateful?
There are a lot of aspiring writers who would benefit from the programme; let's not kid ourselves it wouldn't matter much. Twelve new writers published every year is a lot of bones tossed to those hungry for a first sale. But if public opinion closes the programme, they'll just be twelve more people for whom the cupboard was bare.