New Address:  Box 5308, Woodbridge, Virginia 22194

The 2012 Letters about Literature contest officially starts on September 24, 2011, at the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington, DC. Even though the National Book Festival is a fun time, you don't have to go there to be in the contest.  Go to http://www.lettersaboutliterature.org/ and download all the information and the all-important ENTRY COUPON that has to be affixed to every entry.  PLEASE put an email address on your entry coupon so that we can contact you.  Mail it by the contest deadline of Friday, January 6, 2012. Your original letter to an author is sent to the national contest headquarters where it goes through two rounds of judging.  If your letter comes back to us for state judging, it is the original letter with your entry coupon still attached.

New Jersey Center for the Book Letters about Literature committee might have two additional rounds of judging.

What is the Letters about Literature contest?  It's a great way to tell an author why you enjoyed / learned from /understood what the author was saying.

To enter, you have to write a letter to an author of a book or a poem you read or a speech you heard (sorry, no song lyrics!).  But first, you have to think about how what you read affected you. And then, you have to put it into words that the author would love to read. 

What you write is NOT a fan letter telling the author how much you liked the book.

What you write is NOT a book report telling the author all about the book.  The author already knows all about the book-- he/she wrote it!

What you write calls for deep personal feeling about how the book affected you. Did what you read mirror something that happened to you?  Did what you read change something in you?  Did what you read make you understand something that happened to you in the past a little bit better?

Write honestly as if you were having a conversation with the author.

On the Letters about Literature website are examples of winning entries. Read them, but don't feel you have to use the same topic.