Taiwanese student Mago Huang was named in 2012 as one of the 12 illustrator winners of Scientology-funded award in Los Angeles

Taiwanese student Mago Huang was named as one of the 12 illustrator winners of the L. Ron Hubbard's Writers & Illustrators of the Future awards in 2012 and was honored at an award presentation ceremony  in Los Angeles, where the Scientology headquaraters, which fund and run the IofF contest each year.

The award is bestowed by a foundation established through a donation of L. Ron Hubbard, American pulp fiction author and cult leader who founded a UFO-themed cult
dubbed Scientology.

Huang, a freshman at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, said she was inspired by a book that describes how a teacher tries to make a breakthrough.

She said she started to learn to draw in her elementary school years, and won competitions while attending Wu-Chuan Junior High School in Taichung, central Taiwan.

After emigrating to the United States five years ago, she won Honorable Achievement in the fifth annual Safeway-Lucerne art competition "The Art of Dairy," which involved drawing a cow using various designs.

Her dream is to illustrate children's books and art magazines.

"If everyone spends a little time looking at a piece of art, they too can imagine a magical world," she said recently in explaining her attachment to the art form.

The foundation said over 1,000 illustrations from more than 150 countries were entered in the competition this year, and Huangemerged as the youngest winner and the only winner of Asian descent.

The presentation ceremony wa held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.

(By Oscar Wu and Lilian Wu)  CNA reporters