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Funding for this project is provided by the Library Services and Technology Act administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the West Virginia Library Commission.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

West Virginia Center for the Book awards Letters About Literature Writing Awards

West Virginia Student Named
Among Top Six Competitors Nationally

April 26,2004

Charleston, West Virginia -- In a celebration that grows with each passing year, Karen Goff, coordinator for West Virginia Center for the Book, reads another name off a long list of those being honored. As a nervous student tries to enter the floating Cultural Center stage, flashes permeate the darkness illuminating the proud faces of parents, grand-parents, and teachers as well as the pale faces of fellow students waiting to hear their own names called. This is one of the moments the students anticipate, when they are presented not only their certificate of achievement, but also their own letter published in a book that will appear in libraries throughout West Virginia and the United States. A sense of awe seems to fall over the theater as the audience realizes that these children are now published writers.

    So began the third year of the Letters About Literature award ceremony that took place April 22, 2004, at the Cultural Center Theater in Charleston, West Virginia.
    The competitors in the Letters About Literature program have been through rigorous judging. To enter, students wrote a personal letter to an author to explain how his or her work changed their view of the world or themselves. They selected authors from any genre—fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic—even poetry, essays or speeches.
Nationwide, all letters were submitted for national screening to one location in Dallas, Pennsylvania. Only the best in the country were forwarded to their home states to be judged by state level judges. Once First Place letters were selected for each level, those letters were submitted to the Center for the Book for national judging.
    In West Virginia, 240 children in grades 4 through 6 competed on Level I, 185 in grades 7 through 8 competed on Level II and 101 in grades 9 through 12 competed on Level III. A grand total of five hundred and twenty-six West Virginia students competed across all three competition levels. Eighty-nine were selected as Semi-finalists and all 89 were published in the book created by the West Virginia Library Commission for the West Virginia Center for the Book.
    First place letters in all three levels always advance to compete on the national level, but this year, for the first time since West Virginia Center for the Book’s inception three years ago, a West Virginia student has been named among the top six competitors nationally. Fayetteville High School senior, Jill Meadows, wrote her award winning letter to Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes.
    “I can never explain my gratitude for you and your book. You have changed my life in so many ways. Thank you for mending my relationship with my mother, but most of all, thank you for allowing me to see how wonderful every individual child is. Your book helped me to realize my immaturity, and it is you who taught me my most important life lesson.”
    Other First Place winners included Haley Nicole Hurst Hodges for her Level I letter to Kimberly Willis Holt, author of My Louisiana Sky and Carolyn Rose Garcia for her Level II letter to Charlotte Zolotow, author of When the Wind Stops. For a complete listing of the awards, visit the West Virginia Library Commission website at librarycommission.lib.wv.us or stop by your local public library to read the entire collection of Letters About Literature 2004.
    Letters About Literature is a reading and writing promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, and this year it was presented in partnership with Target Stores with additional funding provided by educational publisher, Weekly Reader Corporation. West Virginia Center for the Book, hosted by West Virginia Library Commission in partnership with the West Virginia Humanities Council is affiliated with the Center for the Book in Library of Congress.

For More Information Contact:

West Virginia Center for the Book
1900 Kanawha Blvd. E., Cultural Center, Charleston, West Virginia 25305
Tel: 304-558-3978
FAX: 304-558-1612
Internet: goffk@wvlc.lib.wv.us