Students pen letters to favorite authors, enter national contest

WESTFALL — Senior students of Judith Hess, who are studying Advanced Placement English Literature and Advanced English Literature, recently completed a writing assignment, a personal letter to an author of their choice. The author might be living or dead, from any genre or time, explaining how that author’s work changed the student’s way of thinking about the world or themselves. Students then had the option of submitting their letters to The Center for the Book, a national reading and writing program sponsored by the Library of Congress. Competition winners, announced in the spring of each year, receive cash awards at the state and national levels. Letters this year were written to a wide variety of novelists and poets, including Ayn Rand, Dr. Seuss, J.K. Rowling, John F. Kennedy, Ray Bradbury, Henry David Thoreau, Jack London, J.D. Salinger, and others. Literary genres represented in the student letters included fiction (classic and contemporary), nonfiction, and poetry. According to Miss Hess, a long-time teacher in the English Department at Delaware Valley, nineteen students have submitted their letters for consideration.