CONTEST:         LETTERS ABOUT LITERATURE 2005 SPONSORED BY   CONNECTICUT CENTER FOR THE BOOK

National Essay Contest Underway

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in partnership with Target Stores presents Letters About Literature, a national reading and writing promotion program for children and young adults sponsored in cooperation with the Connecticut Center for the Book.  Last year, 35,000 entries from writers in grades 4 through 12 were received and screened by the national coordinator and her staff.

This premise of this year’s contest is virtually unchanged from previous years, inviting individual students to write a letter to an author—living or dead—explaining how the author’s work changed the student’s life in some way.  Every year, students express gratitude to their chosen authors for consoling them in the loss of loved ones (whether human or animal), encouraging them in the face of discrimination (against their ancestry, mental or physical disabilities, or sexual identity), or offering guidance in handling moral dilemmas.  Each essay should be an individual’s personal response to an author, not a class assignment or a book report that merely repeats the story.  Letters will be evaluated for originality and expression, content and organization, and grammatical correctness.   

This year, students in Level I (grades 4 through 6) should write a letter of 100 to 250 words; students in Level II (grades 7 and 8) are expected to write between 250 and 500 words; Level III students (grades 9 through 12) should keep within 500 and 750 words.  Public, private, and home-educated students are urged to participate. All entries must be postmarked by 4 December 2004 and become the property of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. A link to the guidelines and entry coupon can be found at http://www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/letters.html.

Two national winners will be selected on each competition level.  Target Stores will send the six national winners, two parents/guardians, and one of their teachers to Washington, DC to attend the National Book Festival in fall 2005.  The national winners will read their winning letters during the Festival and will tour sites within the nation’s capital.  Plus, each national winner will receive a $500 Target GiftCard.  Connecticut Center for the Book at Hartford Public Library will award $100 prizes to Connecticut’s first place essayists in each level during an award ceremony at the State Capitol in June; second place winners will each receive $50.  All Connecticut semi-finalists, as well as their families and teachers, will be invited to this event.  Authors who have spoken at past ceremonies include Wally Lamb, Wendell Minor, Susan Aller, and Walter Wick. 

For more information about this and other Connecticut Center for the Book programs, please call 860.695.6320.