Tor Books has announced the winners of the Wheel of Time calendar contest. The artwork listed below will be published as part of a 2009 calendar that will be availalbe in most book stores. The proceeds of the calendar will go to fund Amyloidosis research at the Mayo Clinic.

FINAL ART HAS BEEN SELECTED FOR ROBERT JORDAN’S
WHEEL OF TIME® 2009 CALENDAR!

January28, 2008: Last spring, Robert Jordan announced a competition on his blog (www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan) where artists would have the opportunity to submit original artwork based on the Wheel of Time® for inclusion in a 2009 calendar.

He wrote, “I know there is some really professional quality work because I have seen it. Style doesn’t matter in this. Manga, hyper-realism, current cover-art. Whatever. Anything and everything is acceptable as a possibility. It will be the quality that counts, not the style. If you want to try it the way you think Rembrandt would have done it, go for it.”

The competition ran from Tuesday, May 22nd through Wednesday, August 15th, and the initial judging was conducted under the supervision of a panel of judges from several popular Wheel of Time® websites including:
www.dragonmount.com
www.wotmania.com
www.tarvalon.net
www.ageoflegends.net
www.encyclopaedia-wot.org

Robert Jordan personally conducted the final judging and selected the 12 images that will appear in the 2009 WHEEL OF TIME® calendar just a few days before he passed away on September 16th, 2007 from the rare blood disease, amyloidosis. Now, Tor Books is proud to announce the names of the artists whose pieces symbolize the devotion that readers have to Robert Jordan and to the rich world he created.

They are (in alphabetical order):

ARTIST	ART WORK TITLE
Michael-James Anderson	“Into the Ways”
Susan Frech-Sims	“Aviendha in the Aiel Waste, Book 4”
James Keegan	“Mordeth Revealed”
Jared Magneson	“The Heart of the Stone”
Doug McCluer	“Couladin Surprises Mat”
Paul Pederson	“Night Stalkers”
Andrea Perurena	“Rand in The Fires of Heaven”
Matthew Ryan	“Child of the Light, Galad Damodred”
Kevin Ed Tinney	“The Caemlyn Waygate”
Joseph B. Trimarchi	“Battle at Whitebridge”
Joni Warden	“Sedai, Among Us”
Tess Wrathall	“A Lily in Winter”

Scheduled to come out in July 2008, ROBERT JORDAN’S THE WHEEL OF TIME® 2009 CALENDAR is a new way to experience favorite stories and characters, and will be a must-have for Robert Jordan’s millions of fans.

Congratulations to all the winners! For all of Robert Jordan’s fans, this is a bittersweet gift: RJ hand-selected these winners a very, very short time before he passed away.

We’ll have more information on the calendar when it becomes available.

Oh, and… you didn’t really expect Tor to show you the winning pictures did you? You’ll have to RAFO to see them.